Armagedda - Svindeldjup Ättestup (2020)^{Release ID: 20757}

Armagedda have always revolved around the core duo of guitarist/vocalist Graav, mainman of solo project LIK and bassist/guitarist Andreas Petterson, vocalist of Stilla. Beginning life as a trio named Volkermord in 1999, they released a twenty minute demo before a permanent name change in 2000. Despite a bit of chopping and changing of the line up, the duo released a number of EPs and splits and three albums before calling it a day in 2004. Fifteen years later they released a couple of digital singles via Nordvis and here in 2020 at the height of Coronageddon, they are properly back with a full-length album, released on digital and CD, again by Nordvis.

Svindeldjup Ättestup is medium-paced black metal with a real old-school vibe, somewhat unsurprisingly for a Swedish band that dates back to the 1990s. Instead of an all-out, chaotic blastathon there are actually some pretty good tunes here, such as Ond Spiritism. A couple of tracks are unusually slow (for black metal) and although I would hesitate to tag them as doom metal they are certainly of a tempo more in keeping with doom. There is still a frosty and hateful vibe perpetrating the album and believe me when the duo let loose with the blasting, it rips.

All in all a decent comeback album and one that still feels relevant despite the time elapsed since their previous release. I'd give it 3.75 / 5.00.