Time for Norwegian black metal to grace the pages of this zine. Slegest from Norway have their new opus out with Dark Essence Records. This opus contains eight songs, one being Status Quo cover, yes you read it right. Now, this opus is very interesting. It is basically old school Norwegian black metal like it has that vibe like it was played back in the nineties. But, the album is not your clone or nothing like that. This one has a mixture of doom and almost black ‘n roll feel in some song structures. There are no blast beats here this has almost punk rooted songwriting, simple yet effective and every song is a hard hitter. For example ‘Innsikt’ starts and ends with whistling and has almost country influence in some song structures, at least I heard it like that. ‘Forløysning og rus’ has that black ‘n roll feel and faster punk attitude like there was in early black metal which made me love this music so much. Besides SQ cover, all the lyrics are in Norwegian, also old school tactics, vocals are harsh but not too extreme, just the way they should be in this kind of album. ‘Vinterkristus’ is also one of my highlights on this album being a mixture of Motorhead, d-beat and black metal. The originality continues with ‘Gåte’ having that awesome saxophone solo towards the end of the song. ‘Til det største som finst’ has such guitar melody that it made goosebumps on my skin making it one of my favorite on this record. Status Quo cover is just something that is okay, different a bit than original but that is an intention to be. Superb album.

10/10