Review by Maverick on March 23, 2024.

Now, given the fact that Kalmah has been seen as a rip-off of Children of Bodom, one would expect some watered down melodic metalcore release with crappy keyboard solos - not? Well definitely not Kalmah, these metal gods reign with metallic power that combine black metal, melodic death metal, speed metal, folk metal and thrash metal to a lovely frenzy that will leave any metalhead craving for more. I was introduced to Kalmah a few years ago in my black metal craze days, and then this band happened to me; after experiencing a complete majestic Kalmah track "Wings of Blackening," I decided it was by time I gave this band a listen fully and after this, may I say, this is my favourite band.

The album starts off with an acoustic metal intro in "Rust Never Sleeps" and continues with a frenzy of black metal and melodic death metal vocals, sugarcoated with some folk metal elements powering up with some speed and thrash metal, and some power metal keyboard elements. This is how the album seems to go, in this melodic death meets black metal direction; though in some places become even more brilliant when one turns up the bass and the rest of the volume. I'd like giving just two reasons why this album was great, and on that virtue, I'd like commenting on some of the highlights of this album:

First, as I have stated the numerous influences, this was something you'd expect a frost giant sing in some cloudy and misty swamp. Death growls with black metal shrieks and melodic death metal 'filling' vocals, thats fucked up shit! Awsome and sweet!

Second, the instrumentals are great. Let me divide this into the percussion elements and strings (bass/ guitar):

Percussion: The drumming started off with a typical heavy metal-kind drumming starting off and just picking up going faster, throughout the songs, especially "Hook The Monster" and "Bullets Are Blind" - do we find a combination of black metal blastbeat and some interesting melodic death metal clobbering, with some minor thrash metal drumming you'd find on a Slayer or Exodus song (hardcore punk elements being there, very little though)

Strings: The guitar works was in some cases similar to the "power-melodeath" assault of Children of Bodom, but was far more interesting and melodic, they were lengthy, and some of them were as long as a minute (more or less). The bass here was not as clear as one would expect, it was silent enough, but it was audible enough to be heard. This led me to believe that there was similar moments found in bands like Dark Tranquility which was echoed by the song "Better Not Tell" which brought the same melodic vibe.

This album is a true extreme metal album, or as some would say "swamp metal" (I avoid using this term because of my ignorance of the usage of the genre name), but if you're a fan of good old guitar solos and extreme growling, then this is for you.

For fans of Dark Tranquility, Wintersun, and Ensiferum.

Rating: 10 out of 10