SVARTJERN has been with me and in my listening repertoire for quite a while now. Basically, since their “Misanthropic Path Of Madness” release. I have been a fan of their sound for some time now, as well as of the band members of other bands. For example RAGNAROK, VULTURE LORD and even URGEHAL. If you are a fan of second wave of Black Metal you cannot go wrong with this or any of their releases. The main drawback (if you wanna call it that) is that there is a heavy CARPATHIAN FOREST influence in their sound, along with also MORDHELL and maybe touches of early SATYRICON. Mind you that’s definitley not a bad thing if you are a fan of the punkish Black’n’Roll genre and they also have a similar lyrical approach as well. What makes a further connection to the band’s sound to their fellow Norwegian brethren is that three of the five members are in the current version of CARPATHIAN FOREST. So you can say maybe that Nattefrost himself realized the validity and the benefits to having band members who have the same mindset that you do. So you already know what they are gonna sound like and the only minor difference is that vocalist HansFyrste has a more growl-style rasp and moments in the songs the guitar playing is a bit more melodic and maybe Thrash like at times. Sometimes even in the drumming, you get a Rock-ish feel at certain moments. I do have just one minor gripe. I do not understand the cover of ‘Under My Thumb’ from the ROLLING STONES. It seems really out of place in the album has a whole. So not much to complain about other than the similar sound, production is top-notch and the runtime is about 40 minutes. Nothing groundbreaking here but a definite stomper in my eyes. www.facebook.com/svarttjern, www.facebook.com/soulsellerrecords