Talk about a match made in heaven…….Switzerland’s Stortregn, a formerly pure 90s melodic black metal band turned more technical, surgical, shredding death metal with some of their black metal remnants left behind, on The Artisan Era, arguably the flagship label for this style with bands like Inferi, Demon King, Enfold Darkness and such.
I’ve reviewed 2 Stortregn albums recently, the reissue of Evocation of Light, the band’s second release, and the band’s last effort, Emptiness Fills The Void from 2018, but the band has since moved from Non Serviam Records over to The Artisan Era, which as I mentioned above, is a perfect fit. In my review of both, I noted how the band had started to delve into more tech death and now they are virtually a full on tech death band, with maybe about 10% left of black metal, but the band’s shift is so perfectly executed its well worth it.
Still armed with a Conatus Studio production by Vladimir Cochet (Mirrorthrone, Conjunctive, Dysrider) and featuring lots of shreddy leads from Johan Smith, the release perfectly blends modern, polished tech death metal and just enough melodic black metal to keep it a little nostalgic. The album is chock full of confident killer riffs and leads from killer openers “The Ghosts of Mars” and “Moon, Sun, Stars” (my personal favorite), “Cosmos Eater”, and “Grand Nexion Abyss”. But truthfully, there isn’t a bad song or riff on the album’s 9 song entirety.
The band also likes to add lots of moments of almost flamenco ish acoustic ambience to many of the songs, they don’t detract to much and are well placed in the grand scheme of the songs and album, which is difficult to do. It adds a little something extra and different and breaks up the seething blackened tech death assault here and there.
Another fine release from Stortregn on a perfect label for them, and I like the band is just now hitting their stride, and will keep getting better from here on.
