Review by Denis on December 5, 2002.

Warning: Avoid drinking or driving while listening to this CD because you'll never come back alive... If you are not involved with those activities while listening, you'll never be the same again! Please be seated to avoid fainting.

Was this music I just listened for real? I don't know! Was it composed and played by human beings? I'm not sure! Something tells me the actual CD was traded for a recording from a foreign galaxy and it really was a message depicting the life from outer space. Too bad no visuals were included. You know what else I should say? Wow! This is awesomely great stuff!

Being actually a re-release of their debut album, the band did totally remixed it, added effects and re-recorded the synthesizers. Since I didn't hear the original version I can only say that it feels like the beautiful girl next door turned into a top model!

There is for sure a good devil watching over me and directing me towards infernal jewels on my musical quest. I'm amazed, stunned and thrilled with my first encounter with this superior form of intelligence called The Kovenant. This outstanding musical achievement is like a book, every song being a rich chapter and I have the feeling when I'm listening to a song that I'm trying to read the whole chapter at once! So incredibly intricate, intriguing and fulfilling that my ears are salving with pleasure! Each song is as euphoric and grandiose as the last one. Add to this an uninterrupted listening caused by keys / sampling interludes that don't leave you the time to take your breath unless you press on the pause button!

This is what I would call a sophisticated Symphonic Avant-garde Black Metal. Looks like the devil brought all his hell angels in heaven and thus will you all rest my metal lover friends after being carried away with this overwhelming wave of sounds and genuine creativity. Not being a big fan or expert in the Black Metal realm this album opened my mind and my willingness to find more treasures is only greater now. The Black vocals are part of the scenery and not the main element in this gorgeous landscape so you don't have the feeling that a wild cat is jumping in your face while admiring the Grand Canyon! Ten great pieces all of them thick with beauties and magical keyboard notes and sounds over a relentless metal section that will instantly hook you by their majestic and phantomatic attractions. My only problem with this album is to give a list of my favorites. I can only give you some directions towards those that made a deeper impression in my neurons. Even if the pace is usually pretty fast, a couple of slower numbers like ‘The Dark Conquest’ had an extra sense of mysticism and also the scary vocals are really a chilling experience worthy to be mentioned. Some of the most strange keyboards partitions give a quite Avant-garde feel to ‘From the Storm of Shadows’. Doom passages and great guitar riffs are on the menu with ‘Through the Eyes of the Raven’. The keyboards throughout this album are simply grandiose and one can only be delighted by the partitions found on the title track.

Bottom Line: I shall let Lex Icon telling you the final last words: "Now sit back and enjoy our earliest mischief, in the bizarre world of True Norwegian Black Metal".

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 10
Atmosphere: 10
Originality: 10
Production: 10
Overall: 10

Rating: 10 out of 10