Info
- Band(s): Blaze of Perdition
- Label(s): Metal Blade
- Release Format(s): 12" vinyl, CD
- Release Year: 2024
- Review Date: September 15, 2024
- Author(s): FelixS
With roots dating as far back as 2004, Blaze Of Perdition can rightfully be called one of the main acts in the Polish Black Metal scene. As with two decades on the clock, the band has built quite a respectable discography that saw the light of day through labels like Agonia Records, Pagan Records, Blood Harvest and most recently via Metal Blade Records. And while such an extensive discography inevitably comes with certain highs and lows, it was clear that the previous album, ‘The Harrowing Of Hearts’, the first one for Metal Blade Records, belonged to the latter category. The album felt quite like an exercise in undistinguished and overall unmemorable Melodic Black Metal. That resulted in a more cautious approach for this new album.
And, frankly, ‘Upharsin’ just feels like a continuation of what was presented on ‘The Harrowing Of Hearts’. It might not be necessarily bad, but the 40 minutes go by almost unnoticed, offering, again, almost zero memorable moments. The musicianship is just fine and the band offers you with all the right musical ingredients, but together they blend into nothing more than generic Black Metal.
The speedy drums and riffs, the melodic tremolo-picked melodies and the harsh vocals are not all that different from the best albums the band presented before, but for some reason the magic is lost. Part of the explanation may perhaps be found in the rather tidy production, the polished sound of the album makes it all go by rather without being noticed. The somewhat contrarian riffs sound too clean and the fast-paced melodies, which sometimes sound a bit like Forteresse or Panphage (just listen to the opening riff of ‘Niezmywalne’, for instance) don’t have the same rough-and-tumble base to provide a grand contrast and therefore do not really stand out.
The musicians do have all the capabilities to create some tremendous Black Metal, as they did before and also in some of their other bands that include Piołun, Mānbryne, Graveland and In Twilight’s Embrace, but they just seem not to possess the capacity to properly lit the fire in Blaze Of Perdition anymore.
Despite being far from the band’s best album, I can imagine that ‘Upharsin’ will be embraced by many – the benefit of Metal Blade Records’ wide network of promotion and distribution, but for seasoned listeners of all things extreme who are looking for the gems in the genre, I would undoubtedly recommend looking further afield. Again, it may not be really bad, but there is so much better and more interesting stuff out there…
Metal Blade
- Country: USA
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Thrash Metal, Other
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube
