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I will say right up front that I have never been a Nokturnal Mortum fan. I found even lauded albums like NeChrist and Weltanschauung to be weak at best, silly and overwrought at worst. This is all by way of preface to me saying that The Voice of Steel is totally fucking awesome. After five albums, Nokturnal Mortum seem to have finally nailed what they were aiming for.

Nokturnal Mortum always leaned a bit too hard on the folk instruments, without really seeming to have any grasp on transition or build. They would switch straight from BM blasting to polka-whooping folk reels and it was like downshifting from fifth gear to reverse. The shifts served no songwriting purpose and only served to break up the momentum. Now, here, they have instead fused their folk sound with the big metal riffing to produce a huge, sweeping sound that is part Graveland, part Skyforger. By using guitars to play folk-inspired riffs they keep their folk edge without losing the force and power of the metal kinesis, and the result is a stirring, powerful sound that hits like a forging hammer. This is a big album, filled with big riffs and a sense of space and epic power like nothing this band has done before. They had all the parts before, and this time they got them all going together in the same direction, and the results are jaw-dropping. Highly, highly recommended.