Review by Sonny for Armagedda - The Final War Approaching (2001)

Armagedda are a Swedish three-piece comprising guitarist/bassist A (Andreas Petterson), who is also vocalist with Stilla, vocalist/guitarist Graav who is also known as solo artist LIK and drummer Phycon whose other gig is drummer with Swedish death metallers Feral. Originally splitting in 2004 after the release of their Ond Spiritism album, A and Graav started off again as folk metal band Lönndom until 2014 when that band too split-up. They then reformed Armagedda in 2020, despite saying back in '04 that the band was gone forever.

The Final War Approaching was released in 2001 and is a minimal production-values effort that has a blasphemous, icy edge to it, taking their cue from Darkthrone's classic era in it's minimalist execution. The point needs to be made that although the production is raw, it achieves perfectly the desired effect and it isn't messy in a demo-quality kind of way, as everything is quite distinct in the mix and this is certainly no unlistenable, muddy mess. Despite the vocals and riffing taking precedence, the bass and drums aren't short -changed and both are perfectly audible without becoming intrusive, which is always a danger, particularly with drumming. Graav has a nice line in cracked shrieking that sounds great in the context of this kind of raw production and produces the kind of infected, evil-sounding vocal performance that so suits the rawer style of black metal. The guitars have that thin, stripped back sound with a slight echo that the second wave was built upon and the riffs are great and with a pretty high memorability factor.

This is exactly the kind of album that perfectly sums up what I want from my black metal, you can virtually smell the blood and brimstone emanating from the record's grooves. Sure, all the experimentation, dissonance and avant-garde stylings are great in their place, but seem to have become the be all and end all among the black metal cognoscenti and they don't encapsulate what I look to black metal for. Being a dyed-in-the-wool, stuck-in-his-ways old bastard I will stick with the stuff that makes me happiest and that is exactly this kind of raw, unholy, blasphemous-sounding shit.