Sheol
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I have to admit that I'm getting a little tired of black metal lately. There are plenty of reasons for this: over saturation of a defunct scene, loads of talentless bands, weak production declared an art form, and then there's the satanic imagery that just screams "I refuse to get over my parents sending me to Sunday school as a kid!" It all gets on my nerves. It really takes a lot for a band to emerge from the black metal scene and get my attention. Naglfar has done just that with Sheol.

To be honest, I haven't heard a single note from any of Naglfar's previous releases, but this CD makes me want to buy everything else they've ever done. They are brutal without being raw and reckless. They are melodic without being symphonic or "artsy". They have variety and dynamics without ever being avant-garde or experimental. They occasionally throw in some groove or melodic death elements without ever going for that "commercialized black metal" sound. See where I'm going with this? Frankly, few black metal bands can have any of these elements without having one of those elements completely dominate their sound. Black metal bands tend to have the ethic of "let's see how many ways you can exploit one simple concept until your guitar strings break." Sometimes that works, but often times it's just boring and shows a lack of creativity. Naglfar manage to walk the line between all the clichés and keep their identity. I'm not saying this is ground breaking, I'm just saying it's kind of unique even though it shouldn't be. This is a band that's doing something that should make them completely average, but in black metal, it's what makes them stand out. Black metal's a strange sub-genre, I guess.

Did I mention the lyrics are actually good? I don't usually notice lyrics, but these are excellent and poetic even though they obsess on the typical blackened themes of militant misanthropy, evil spirituality, and even a little bit of Satanism. These lyrics seem to be inspired by something real unlike most black metal lyrics which spout satanic rhetoric like a Catholic child reciting catechisms. It's a little difficult to put into words what makes these lyrics work, but I think this is how true metal lyrics should be.

To top it all off, the production is excellent. Every instrument can be heard clearly. Yes, even the bass guitar. Some of you didn't even realize that black metal bands even had a bass guitar, but most of them do and you can actually hear this one. The guitars, overall, keep the buzzy, blackened shrillness that we all know and love, but still have some real heft. You haven't heard a black metal album this heavy since... well, since Immortal's last album... but it's still pretty rare and deserves mention. Some would say that this heaviness makes them blackened death metal, but I don't think so. As far as I'm concerned, this is how black metal was meant to sound. Of course, you don't have to think that. You really don't need to know how to categorize it. You just need to know that it's a damn good album that you should check out.