Taake

S/T

Karisma/ Dark Essence Records 2008

Norway's TRUE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL standard bearers, Taake have finally done it.  They have released an album that hits its mark and captivates me like their debut, Nattestid once did.  Their fourth full length sees Hoest going it alone after a controversial year as one of Norway's most infamous black metal acts.  And as such he pens some of his strongest material to date.  I can't place my finger on what it is this time around.  All the ingredients are the same and the style is the same.  But for some reason this album manages to connect with me through memorable and blood freezing riffs in a way that the two previous efforts did not.  Ummenneske attacks like a Black N Roll warlord, not unlike more modern Darkthrone material only to explode into lightning fast Nordic black metal mayhem.  Then the song implodes and a nostalgia inducing bass line carries the remainder of the plodding material until once again groove heavy black metal reemerges from the murky depths.  Whereas Motpol gives the musical impression of a dethroned queen searching in vain for her lost kingdom through bouts of sorrow, madness, and unrelenting frostbite.  The album finishes its heavily forested trek with the 10 minute epic, Velg Bort Livet.   Hoest's grand composition transitions through many winding and narrow paths that conjure images of a troll ambling its way through the deep dark woods of mountainous Norway.  Whether it be thunderous black metal frenzy, icy melodies, or melancholic bass heavy passages, each new direction the path takes brings new wonder, new magic, and an ominous fear.  Hoest's vocals are scathing and without mercy.  Nothing about this album veers outside of the realm of the TRUE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL doctrine, but this is not a bad thing.  The album is intense, cold and pure in its affinity of black metal orthodoxy.  In a phrase, this album is pure black magic.