Ravencult

Temples of Torment

Dark Essence Records 2007

After Dark Essence has made their first non-Norwegian signing with Greece's Ravencult.  It is easy to see why they made this choice.  Firstly Ravencult is really good at what they do.  Secondly their style sounds like something straight out of Norway so it wasn't too big of a musical leap for Dark Essence.  Eschewing the Hellenic stylings of their fellow countrymen, Ravencult instead opt for the cold  and windy black metal riffing found in early Norwegian luminaries like Gorgoroth and Immortal.  As a matter of fact I find that Temples of Torment most closely parallels Immortal's classic Pure Holocaust in its sound and style.  Listen to In Times of Demise with its marching trebly riffs that reverberate with icy winds and you can envision Abbath and Demonaz grinning with whimsical delight.  At times Ravencult are a little more chaotic and noisy like on the whirlwind beginning of Onslaught Command which calls to mind Antichrist era Gorgoroth.  My favorite track though is Blessed in Heresy which is so glacially cold in its melodic Darkthrone styled riffing that I was nearly frozen to my chair and had to knock the icicles from my ears after its final note.  Ravencult are extremely successful in recreating the dark and windswept northern atmosphere that all those original albums seemed to have been steeped in.  Dark Essence has signed an entity that is more Nordic than any of its actual Norwegian bands and that is saying a lot.  Ravencult are a great Greek band that recalls the glory years of Nordic black metal yet play it with their own strict interpretation and thunderous energy.  If you yearn for those early years of the Norwegian scene to return you can forget it.  But you can listen to Temples of Torment and get a feel for what those years were like and what they meant.  It is sort of refreshing to see a band still putting out music that possess the magic and mood of this bygone era.  Hail the Return.