Review by Fernando on April 4, 2025.

In the sprawling and ever expanding world of black metal, there's a lot of studio-only, one-person projects that get a lot of praise, some deserved, other times not so much. But there's no denying that these projects have an allure and mystique that in the age of social media seems to be more and more rare. And so we have Svartsyn; the project of Swedish underground survivor Ornias, who for the last 30 years has remained a constant shadowy presence in the darkest corners of Swedish black metal, and after a considerable half decade time gap, returns to the fold with Vortex Of The Destroyer, released through Norma Evangelium Diaboli.

Svartsyn is a very interesting project to talk about, they're arguably a pioneering band of the Swedish scene, while also debatably part of the whole "Orthodox" black metal sub-category that includes contemporaries Funeral Mist and Ofermod. Regardless, the only thing you need to know about Svartsyn is that they started as a band, underwent a lot of grief releasing their first 3 albums from the mid 90's to the early aughts, and since the mid aughts, Ornias has kept Svartsyn as a studio endeavor and relocated to Belgium where he has worked with recording engineer and session drummer Hammerman ever since. Other than that, the very particular distinction about Svartsyn is their sound; black metal that's traditional and classic, as it is relentlessly dark and overwhelming. And because Svartsyn's sound has no bells or whistles, Ornias has successfully managed to keep the band's sound timeless and consistent with enough variation to also keep it fresh.

However, this new record is a unique beast, four brand new tracks that continues Svartsyn's streak, and six pre-Svartsyn tracks that Ornias decided to dust off and re-record in full with all the skills he's developed since the days of Chalice; the band before becoming Svartsyn. So, this poses an interesting experience that also makes my job kinda hard, because while the overall execution is good, great even thanks to the excellent recording and mixing that makes the songs cohesive, this does sound like a compilation rather than a full album, and that's by far the main and only significant issue.

While Ornias did succeed in reworking and revamping this songs, the songwriting and arrangements do have a much more primitive and raw quality, the riffs in particular are much more thrash-oriented, at points they're reminiscent of Sepultura's early demos, the drumming is also another stark difference, while the blast-beats are as strong as ever, there's a lot more rhythmic patterns that, again, have more in common with thrash metal than Svartsyn's more familiar relentless drumming, though I will sing Hammerman's praises at how he can do both the hyper fast and intense drumming that's become a signature of Svartsyn's sound, and the more primitive, old school drumming of early 90's black metal that the Chalice songs required to keep consistency and authenticity.

Ornias also deserves praise for being able to continue delivering true black metal with zero filler or padding, and while the actual songwriting of the album's second half maintains that primitive bend, Ornias' actual performance is commendable, his guitar and bass playing while not revolutionary, greatly delivers in extremity and force, straight to the point, brutal, primitive and above all overwhelming, he creates this impenetrable walls of sound, which is then complemented with his distinct dry roars, the fact that he's still able to deliver such an intense vocal performance at this point in his career is simply astounding.

Overall, while I do have my issues with the clear divide between the new songs and unearthed material, this is still another worthy opus to a surprisingly consistent body of work, although I do hope that Ornias continues moving forward with his unique style now that he was able to get his old material the proper preservation they were long overdue.

Rating: 8 out of 10