Review by Felix on April 11, 2023.

Salt is known to be an indispensable ingredient in every kitchen. Every beginner cook recognises it as a pillar of his spices and soon makes a covenant with it. Balmog has also realized this. To be honest, Covenants Of Salt is more or less the identical twin of Pillars Of Salt. To put it this way: the difference in length (18:26 to 18:23 minutes) is greater than that in the musical approach. If someone now asks what this shit is all about and whether Covenants... isn't superfluous, we should send him to Angus Young (because unfortunately the Ramones are all dead) and he'll explain the basics to him again.

Balmog (and with them the audience) wallow in a mixed bag of emotions during the whole time of their salt-sequel. Melancholy and despair, fury and impulsiveness go hand in hand. They are complementing and contrasting each other in an absolutely coherent manner. Despite the remarkable number of breaks and the changes in atmosphere, Covenants… does not sound bulky or overloaded in any way. Once again, the Spanish quartet has found a very resilient balance between the differences between the individual currents that characterize their music. Abysmally deep to blatantly aggressive, the demonic harmonies cut into the listener's brain and even if it all seems as if Pillars... has peeled itself out of its skin, it never gets tiring at any second. Soon no one asks about the necessity of the second part, but only about the timing of the appearance of the third section.

Needless to say: the production does not give reason to any complaint. There is pressure, there is transparency, there is heaviness. Progression and psychedelia may play a role in Balmog’s cosmos, but they cannot usurp the throne where metal sits above all. The efficient riffing or, to go one step further, the entire guitar work speaks a clear language, even though weird synthesizers want to take us into another dimension from time to time. In a nutshell: Covenants Of Salt is a worthy second part and a place where sugar totally fails. Should part three also succeed as well, I suggest "Triumph of Salt" as the title.

Rating: 8 out of 10