Immortal - Sons of Northern Darkness (2002)^{Release ID: 570}

I have an admission to make. Despite the fact that there was a time when I fell in love with Norwegian black metal heavy-weights Immortal during the mid-1990's, I can't say that I've ever found most of their more celebrated releases to genuinely compete with the top tier black metal acts overall. "Battles In The North" was the exception with it's super intense & brutal approach fitting directly into my comfort zone but even it's very strong predecessor "Pure Holocaust" (4/5) had some flaws that saw it residing firmly in the second tier for me personally. Their highly regarded 1999 fifth album "At the Heart of Winter" (3.5/5) seems to be almost unanimously claimed as Immortal's career peak these days but I struggle a bit with it's thrashier meloblack direction & sloppy musicianship to be honest & have never been able to see what others do in it even if I do get some enjoyment out of it. And this brings us to Immortal's other major landmark in 2002's "Sons Of Darkness" record which leaves me with fairly similar feelings overall.

On the positive side, Bloodbath/Hypocrisy/Lindemann/Lock Up legend Peter Tägtgren's production job has done a splendid job at highlighting the album's strengths i.e. it's consistency, it's melodicism & it's more mature & refined used of space & tempo. This doesn't really surprise me as Peter already had a very strong decade-long portfolio of high quality records like Dawn's "Slaughtersun (Crown of the Triarchy)" under his belt by this stage, not to mention Immortal's previous two albums. Everything sounds really tight with the musicianship & execution having seen a remarkable improvement on the band's previous "classics". In fact, it could be said that Peter plays as important a role as the musicians here when you compare the result to some of Immortal's previous releases. I don't think I'd be out of line to suggest that it's his influence that sees Abbath's guitar work sounding as tight as it does because there is just so much evidence of how inadequate the iconic front man can be in that department over the years. There are glimpses of the hectic blast beat insanity of the past but even then they're utilized in a more controlled fashion & always return to a more subdued & often quite thrashy direction that's not all that far removed from the one you'll find on "At The Heart Of Winter". There are some obvious references to Bathory's Viking period included too (particularly closing track "Beyond the North Waves") but I'm not sure that they're as effective as they sound on paper.

I dunno... I certainly still enjoy Abbath's croaky vocal performance, Horgh's moments of relentlessness & the band's trademark icy atmosphere but I can't deny that I find myself being a little disappointed at the end of the experience. As Ben said to me yesterday when we were discussing the album, "Sons Of Northern Darkness" is a very solid black metal record but unfortunately that's all it is as far as I can see. The record just sounds a little too easy on the ear for me to really become enraptured with it. In many ways it's Immortal's answer to Carcass' "Heartwork" in that it's so clearly more restrained & melodic compared to it's older siblings but still offers plenty of value, clearly not as much as that landmark release for the melodeath movement did though. It simply comes down to taste I'm afraid & I can't honestly say that I regard any of these tracks as black metal classics. In terms of Immortal's overall back catalogue I place "Sons Of Northern Darkness" just behind "At The Heart Of Winter" in the list of also-rans that follow my more muscular "Battles In The North" & "Pure Holocaust" sweet spot.