Vesthangarth – Ominous Path Of Spectral Knowledge

In the summer of 2022 I reviewed Vesthangarth’s demo, which was a surprisingly great affair of Scandinavian sounding Black Metal and I concluded that this band would have a bright future. Well, I might not be Nostradamus and this band might still be self-releasing their music, but damn, this debut album is definitely an amazing piece of icy art.

‘Ominous Path Of Spectral Knowledge’ continues where the band left off with their ‘Doomed Blood Concatenation’-demo, but while the resemblances are more than obvious, the most striking thing is the impressive progression the band made. This debut album is a serious step-up from their demo recording, not only in terms of the great production (which I already mentioned in the review for their demo) but especially in terms of their song writing skills. Vesthangarth draws a little more from two sources for this debut album, taking the best from Scandinavian-style Melodic Black Metal as well as from the more raw side of the genre. The Chilean duo obviously also invested a little more in dynamics. While their demo had a predominant mid-tempo to boast from, ‘Ominous Path Of Spectral Knowledge’ has a far more diverse character and proves to be a more all-round venture in which a good sense for melody and tempo-changes continually rears its head.

These current times are good for Melodic or even Symphonic Black Metal, which makes it even more surprising that this great band has not yet been picked up. Keeping in mind that ‘Ominous Path Of Spectral Knowledge’ is still for the most part a self-produced affair, I still wholeheartedly stick with the concluding words from my previous Vesthangarth review…