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I was impressed with this duo's third album Dawn of Extinction, which is why I'm glad that they sent this along with it. Featuring John Falk and Fredrik Håf, Devourer have that enviable Swedish trait of making intensely melodic Black Metal with enough hooks to tear your soul apart and, on Across the Empty Plains, they do it with a diabolical intensity that actually outdoes the album that follows it.

Most of the album blares along in the Marduk/Belial (Fin)/Dark Funeral vein of hyperblast Black Metal with songs like "Extirpation" and "A Misanthropic Introspective", which come blasting out of the speakers at terminal velocity like a winged demon coming to rip your head off clean. However, there are points where they slow down and inject a good bit of atmosphere to their sound such as on the haunting title track, the freezing, Immortal-esque "Finem vita Cura", and the murky, nightmarish highlight "Throne of Agony". These songs have much more identity than the speedy stuff, and I kind of wish they'd focus more on the atmospheric aspect of their sound as the band is clearly good enough to make something really special out of it.

Needless to say, if you are looking for some frenzied, killer Black Metal that doesn't forget the misanthropic atmosphere that makes the genre special, then this and the rest of the band's output is worth tracking down.