Naglfar's debut album "Vittra" was for me a bit hollow recording while still containing some damn fine songs. I expected much from their new "Diabolical" album and how did it turn out?

Well "Diabolical" is a thousand times deeper and more massive sound than "Vittra", and while listening the first song.. it sounds just incredible great. Jens Rydén's voice is anything but this usual monotonous croak. It's very harsh and very screamy, fitting the music perfectly. Guitars are much better sounding than on "Vittra" and also the riffs don't have the "nice" feeling anymore (well.. some of them do, but not as much). Drums vary from fast-paced (compare to Marduk) to slow-paced infernal sounding parts, of course there's lots of double bass crackling and other thingies so this really wont get boring at any moment. Song after song, this is just the pure flow of energetic modern Black Metal. Also one huge positive thing is that there's very little synths and they hardly ever play while the actual song is playing.. but like in the middle of the song fading out when guitars come in.. or something like that.

About the production.. well it could be better on the drums. In the blasting parts you cant really hear snare at all but only bass drum crackling.. and even too loud sometimes as it cuts little bit off from the other instruments. But that's a little mistake for me..

For those who enjoyed their previous album this is a must!

© 2000 wrath