The sixth full length release by Finland’s Sargeist ‘Flame Within Flame’ begins with some forlorn riffing that has this descending aspect to it with the opening moments as it pulls you in a sonic black pit. Things drive forward propelled by an anguished melodicism through the guitars. Gloom is a word I’d say describes most of the atmosphere of the music here and I found the album to begin very strongly and had to keep revisiting the initial couple songs because the despairing riffs were very stimulating and got stuck in my head.
‘The Chant of Rotting Tongues’ has these goth rock or maybe post-punk sounding sections and I think it works really well. It’s like Black Metal channeled thru The Cure or Christian Death. This type of riff only appears here on the album but I enjoy it and it’s notable. The chorus part is very mournful and has a section which just sounds so cold like standing on a mountain’s peak in a storm. The finale of the song has some effects used for the last vocals and it adds this zombified dimension which is also only utilized here on the album.
Expect plenty of glorious triumphant riffs as well, some proper ancient battle music taking up a good portion of the middle section of the album. ‘Incandescence of the Funeral Pyre’ and ‘Ordained and Adorned’ are more epic sounding – the former feels as if you are about to go down in a fiery blaze of glory holding a gleaming sword dripping with blood on a medieval battlefield and the later has some mysterious clock tower sounding parts which really caught my ear and managed to bring this dark fantasy feeling.
The vocals are a departure from previous material, don’t expect the shrieks of ‘Satanic Black Devotion’ here – the styles used by Hoath Torog or Profundus on the previous albums are no longer with us. Shatraug performs with a quieter croaking approach that I’ve seen some people say they don’t like but I hadn’t minded as much initially and grew quite fond after some time with the material. A bit more restrained in the croaking department than say Inquisition or Immortal but in a similar style. The vocals sit lower in the mix than on most albums I’ve heard but everything fits nicely together. The guitars stand out front and centre as the primary component melodically and really shine on this record. They are the star of the show here and the riffs take you on a journey across the course of the album. They have a twang to them at times and are more treble and mids boosted rather than much lower end which makes sense for the genre, the guitars are loud and dominate the mix and are the central fountain of blood from which this album flows.
The drumming is smooth and professional sounding. Nur-i-siyah doesn’t overly go hard on fills in but rather uses them carefully with a nice amount of cymbal flourishes and accents and generally does a respectable job. The bass tone reminds me of the bass from ‘Panzergod’ from ‘Satanic Black Devotion’ – it fits really nicely in the mix and peeks out here and there while it hums along beneath the waves but is most audible on ‘The Chant of Rotting Tongues’ and the ending section of the final epic track ‘Rite of Ascension’. It melds well with the guitars and drums here and adding it’s own counter-melody which sounds perfectly grim and reminds me of something like Strid with the strong audible bass components in a despairing sea of swirling guitars.
The writing and arrangement is top notch, the songs are interesting to listen to as they shift across riffs and sections. There’s no intros or interludes to be found here. I find the songs here to be for the most part on par with the quality of ‘Satanic Black Devotion’, ‘Disciple of the Heinous Path’ & ‘Let the Devil In’. The production is much closer to ‘Let the Devil In’ and their most recent album ‘Unbound’ which is to say cleaner and more proper studio-type production as opposed to the comparatively rawer sounding earlier material. Which is to be expected somewhat for a band at this point in their lifespan but as a friend pointed out to me about ‘Let the Devil In’ which I believe also applies here – that these are incredible riffs possibly some of the best Shatraug has written recently and if only the production wasn’t quite as clean it would be more digestible in a sense it almost holds it back a bit by polishing too many of the dark edges of the material. But that’s nitpicking a bit – the music is quality.
Overall this is a more memorable album than the last one in my opinion and has more standout tracks. It’s not as nefarious as ‘Satanic Black Devotion’ and I’m sure many longtime fans may not give it a fair chance compared to that classic or the aforementioned fan favourite ‘Let the Devil In’ but I say give it a shot because there’s something I enjoyed quite a bit here personally. It made me revisit the band’s discography a couple times and relisten to the new album repeatedly so I recommend it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a longtime Sargeist fan or not you’ll find some heat here with ‘Flame Within Flame’, a set that includes some new favourites to add to the repertoire.
