Review by Felix on June 27, 2024.

It is surely common understanding that consistency can be an important factor for the quality of an album. Maybe it is a difficult challenge for newcomers to keep an eye on this feature, especially when it comes to one man projects. So many tasks for only one man and shit, nobody is perfect. But we cannot excuse every mistake, only in view of the fact that we are confronted with a debut of a lone wolf. Korpituli’s first full-length “The Ancient Spells of the Past” falls through the net, because it has no direction, no orientation and a very mediocre flow at best. There are no parts (not to mention songs) that catch my attention and broad sections of the album sound like the result of a half-hearted rehearsal session. In view of the solid second work of Korpituli, this debut was probably prematurely released. But isn’t it a testimony of maturity and cleverness to realise that things have yet not reached the form and quality they should have?

The album bleeds from many wounds. For example, there is no balance between voice and guitars, the latter is way too loud. Another example, nobody knows why the second track is a whispered intermezzo. Or take the opener. I don’t say that its first guitar line is bad, but was it really necessary to begin with a nine minutes plus song? This entry does not make it easy to find access to the album and it does not deliver a convincing structure. At the end it is not a complete downer, but it remains difficult to define for what it stands. Speaking of downers – I recommend “Into the Magical Realm of the Woods”, if you want to discover one. A more or less boring guitar figure is repeated again and again and it takes three minutes until something begins which I would call a song. The artist wants to drown the listener in a brew of tragedy and melancholy and yes, this ending is decent, but the number cannot be saved any more after the first 180 seconds of stupidity.

The longer the album lasts, the less exciting it gets. The title track is a more or less acceptable soundtrack for a theatrical horror movie, but it fails to provide the diabolic core of black metal. There is no intensity, no fanaticism, no disgust. The entire album drifts more and more into a Burzum-like, meditative opera and no, I don’t speak of “Dunkelheit” or other killers, but of the stoically flowing ambient tracks of Varg Vikernes. Sometimes a few fervent screams remind us of the fact that we are listening to an album (with a good artwork) which wants to be black metal and I have no problem to admit that the closer generates a pretty dense mood. Nevertheless, this is not enough to gain ground significantly. The black metal scene is filled to the brim with better albums and I nearly wonder that our friend from Suomi had the chance to release further albums.

Rating: 5.3 out of 10