Archgoat - The Light-Devouring Darkness (2009)

This Finish band plays the style of Black / Death metal that I dislike the most, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible for the sake of the review. The band had an 11 years hiatus and came back to deliver their satanic message with a vengeance. I must say that the sound quality of this album is exactly the similar to a low budget production circa early 90’s.

Maybe the sound quality is done this way on purpose to give this album a grittier feeling to it, and create the atmosphere of brutality and destruction that they are trying to create. While the music is dense and brutal, like it should, it gets too boring to fast for me. It sounds like the same riff droning for 30 minutes. If you like this then you are in for a treat. Also the intensity of the song varies from time to time, and when it goes slow, it gets more painful.

The vocals in my opinion are pretty bad, but they are standard from what I’ve heard in releases of this kind. They are pretty brutal, I have to agree, but they just don’t cut it for me.
So in overall, there are songs with fast parts, slow parts, and the same riffs over and over. But if you like this kind of music, this album is pretty good and I can say this because I’ve listened to my fair share of albums in this genre.

Release Date: April 21, 2009

Country: Finland