Sovereign Nocturnal

This release was good enough. But it should have been better. With a little more inspiration and effort it could have been a lot better. First off at three songs this doesn't really feel like a full album. Even though all the songs stretch past the ten minute mark. Instrumentally the band plays textbook atmospheric black metal. The vocals lingers in between black and death metal. They sound like many Cascadian black metal bands.

Their songs feature nature samples, acoustic passages and nice interludes. These they play very well. All of their intros are pleasant on the ears as well. The problem is the metal. The metal although very competent, is not original. It sounds nice enough but does little to actually add any new ideas to the genre. At times it is better than others. Sometimes it picks up a bit and actually sounds like black metal should. These parts are not that common though. Usually it is just average and at some unfortunate times it stagnates to the point where I am completely bored.

Into the Oak starts out with the faint sounds of wind accompanied with owls calling in the distance. Drums break the ambiance. Using a wall of sound technique the band turns feedback into an instrument. Like I said, the intros on this album are killer. Then the metal kicks in. I can't say I'm terribly exited by it. The black metal is played well enough, it just doesn't really do anything for me. Later in the song is a nice acoustic interlude followed by more black metal.

The following song is Risen of the Moor. It starts up with a very nice post rock inspired build up. The tension is released with pounding black metal. This song features an acoustic interlude that is similar to the first song. The rest of the song is actually much better the first song and manages to be menacing and melodic at the same time. The drums are great on this track. They remind me of war and sound almost tribal at times. If all of the songs sounded like this one the album would have been much better.

The final song, which is the title track, sounds like a mixture of the first two songs. Like the other songs, the acoustic interlude is there. For the metal parts, there are moments of both boredom and greatness in this track. The repeating riff in the middle part isn't the greatest but the melodic section in the end is very uplifting. But it does drag on a bit too long and kind of withers off at the end.

While this album did have its moments I think it didn't reach its full potential. The instrumental interludes and intros were played well, but they really haven't quite gotten there yet. They do achieve a nice atmosphere, but on the other hand there isn't really even one memorable riff I can think of while I'm typing this review. And I've listened to this album multiple times. While this album wasn't perfect, I am confident that this band will put out something far superior in the future as they develop their sound further.