Wrath Passion

Careful Saint

Infest Records 2008

Lofoten's Wrath Passion conjure up raw and somewhat melodic black metal from Norway that possess a true organic quality within the music.  Corvus Corax begins our journey across the seven songs that comprise Careful Saint.  Fuzzed out guitars and trollish black metal vocals freeze their way across the track which ends with an odd 30 second folk sounding guitar passage while Ravens crow in the back ground courtesy of E. Grieg.  The next song, Forvesta is slower and more ambient in its style with a nice haunting guitar solo and some simplistic keyboards as the songs fades out.  The vocals on King of Destruction sound as if they were recorded in a cave and the drum beat is more chaotic than the methodical hammering on the previous track.  It also is a little choppy in its transitions between guitar passages which is a problem for several of the compositions here.  I am sure given time the song flow will be much smoother.  Fever-dream vocals reminiscent of Ved Buens Ende make an appearance during the track and display the variation of styles Wrath Passion incorporate within their songwriting.  Daniel Mark apparently doesn't fear experimentation.  Triumphant and nostalgic melodies ebb and surge in Tordenskrammel bringing to mind a longing for faded glory and the need to create newfound splendor.  The song that shares the same title as the band is the final one on the CD (if you don't count the outro which is a cacophony of discordant sounds and screams).  An awesome folky riff manifests itself out of the gloom of the song at the 1:23 mark and I would have loved to hear that one repeated many times.  The drum sound on this release leaves a lot to be desired.  Not exactly groundbreaking and a little choppy during internal song transitions, Careful Saint is nonetheless a pleasant albeit darkness shrouded trek through the shadows of Norway's deep forests.