The Black - Alongside Death

January 8, 2010

Reviewer: Chris

The Black has shattered a near fifteen-year silence with its second offering, Alongside Death, a half hour of pretty intense Swedish black metal. The band’s first effort, Priest of Satan, released back in 1994, was the late Jon Nödtveidt’s sidestep away from his main outfit, Dissection. It was one of the first “raw” black metal bands out of that notorious scene that produced such heavyweight legends like Emperor, Mayhem, Burzum and Marduk. With new vocalist D. Forn Bragman (Vinterland) the band is steadily along the fine line of “ho-hum” black metal and “typical, yet interesting.”

Hearing this CD, I hear some De Mysteriis-era Mayhem, complete with Grieghallen -esque sound. While there’s nothing really innovative or original that can be accomplished with this current wave of black metal, a band can still manage to create an atmosphere of pure evil and make the music memorable. Alongside Death does that somewhat sporadically. While relying heavily on the devices used by nearly every Scandinavian “kult” band since 1989, The Black does manage to capture the aforementioned foreboding atmosphere, but somewhere it just finds itself teetering on that run-of-the-mill border and keeps key elements of the atmosphere they were obviously striving to create on the lower end of the priority list.

The vocals, however blasphemous this might be to some old-schoolers, are much more interesting than Nödtveidt’s original efforts; Bragman certainly has the Atilla-like delivery that made De Mysteriis dom Sathanas so majestic and important. While every band around that 1993 period was vying so desperately to be considered “true” and cult-like, The Black once fell into a similar mixing bowl of late-comers and second-tier bands riding the coattails of Mayhem’s mighty cloaks. That said, Atilla was leaps and bounds over Per “Dead” Ohlin, and Bragman one-ups Nodtveidt as well, making this a decent trip into black metal’s amazing storyline. This CD is made all the more interesting by Bragman’s raspy, yet concise output.

Standouts on this CD are “Dead Seed,” “Fleshless,” and “Death Throes,” with the latter sounding like a true venture through some cold and dark forest a la Immortal’s Pure Holocaust. The CD has moments of terrific black metal that can sometimes fall into a gray area of unoriginality, but overall the sophomore effort is a good listen if you’re not expecting anything truly ear-splitting or 100% hate-inducing. Some solid tunes are here that sound all-too familiar in spots, but not enough to dismiss it entirely.

Release Date: July, 2009
Label: Pulverised Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  On The Descent To Hell
2.  Death's Crown
3.  A Contract Written In Ashes
4.  Dead Seed
5.  Fleshless
6.  Death Throes
7.  The Wrath From Beneath
8.  Alongside Death

Total playing time: 30:27

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