Falling Sky

This is a cool album. What’s cool is that it is different from the previous one, without going to pretentious extremes for the sake of impressing its audience. The people involved are undoubtedly talented but I’m afraid I do not see them attaining international acclaim because of the way things turned out for them. But here in Australia, they are well-known enough and maybe that will be enough for them. First of all they have The Serpent Inquisitor of Stargazer fame drumming for this one. If you have not heard Stargazer – you’re missing out and what this means for Myrddraal is that they have one hell of a drummer on their side. The album took ages to complete and they perfected it to a ceratin level, well above Blood on the Mountain. The sound and production are just so much clearer, the songs have diversified. What remained staunchly Black Metal has become faster and more chaotic. I think it also sounds more modern, in the weird sense that the modern fascination with Thrash crept in and laid its claim to how the songs progress and the trashy interludes that glue the movements together. There are some very tranquil moments here as well, which I thought initially were performed on keyboards, but having seen the band play one of them live I was surprised to learn that they were done using guitar effects. Overall a great album, combining violence and lots of atmosphere and even choral interludes! Together with surprisingly some very Black Sabbath moments. Hail.