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After the admitted awesomeness of Traitors to Mankind a decade ago, Temple of Baal kind of slipped off the rails a little. They were still a decent band, but they lost their old-school spark and made a pair of much more modern, blasty, Black/Death albums that were not bad, but didn't flash the spark of dirty old-fashioned Black Thrash they had always mixed into their stew. They sounded much less original, and it seemed like this band was just going to flail into oblivion. Not so.

Now Temple of Baal have not really harked back to the dirty, thrashing style of their old days, no. What they have managed to do is forge a whole new sound and identity and managed to sound original and cool for the first time in ten years. This is definitely a Black Metal album, with big, howling riffs and an atmosphere of evil and doom, but the melodic work is far more present and hooky than before. Maybe new guitar player Saroth has given them a shot in the arm, I don't know, but this is the best shit the band has done in a decade. This is a big album – big riffs, big songs, big sound. It builds up songs into pounding behemoths and piles on riff after riff while Amduscias bellows along in a deeper, more Death Metal register. Here and there we get some thrashier moments, but really this sounds more like more epic Black Metal bands like Mortuus Infradaemoni or Lunar Aurora, while still having a taste of that old Temple of Baal filth and nastiness. A superior work from a band I had almost given up on.