I was given a bunch of promos by a friend that has a metal magazine, thus being plagued by large amounts of audial shit in CD form being sent to him. Among the promos I received was Swedish Ishtar's debut release, this mCD.

The first thing that struck me was the band members hilarious names, among others "Troll" and "Snöstorm" (Snowstorm). Snowstorm? Christ, what will come next? Autumn breeze, Drizzle or why not Cloudy with Sunny Intervals?

After having ridiculed their names and band photos I put the actual disc in my stereo, and tried to give it an objective listen. What first came to mind was the sudden desire to strangle the imbecile behind the synths. After a while this proved to be a premature wish though, as you will find yourself with the urge to cause grievous bodily harm to the entire band after a few minutes listen.

Synth drenched, melodic "black" metal is what this disc offers. Perhaps this could have been an ok disc without the inclusion of these horrible synths, they sound ridiculous, I actually thought my phone was ringing on two separate occasions during the first song but it turned out that it was actually the synth player being overly ambitious.

Recommended to fans of Dimmu Borgir and similar.

© 2000 blodsband