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Impious Havoc is a band I've followed for many a year now, picking up on them when I was going through a 'buy everything and anything that sounds like Darkthone's 2nd to 4th album' stage. We've all done it, haven't we? Oh. No. Just me then. Anyhow, these guys don't sound particular Finnish at all, and have consistently produced completely un-original, but still highly enjoyable orthodox Norwegian sounding Black Metal since this (their debut full length) was released in 2003.

Alongside Darkthrone, there's a lot of early Gorgoroth worship going on here, with fizzing melodic riffs cutting through the sheer grimness to a cacophony of clattering cardboard box drums and throaty, hissing vocals. All this is frozen into an unusually dry sounding production that suits the music well. It's quite obvious that the people behind this band don't have a modicum of shame for the quite blatant cloning of the classic 2nd wave Norwegian sound, but they don't have to either. It's as if their motto is "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em in the snowy forest". Bring your own corpse paint, and prepare to gurn whilst open handedly claw-grasping at the sky.