Elderblood - Son of the Morning
This group has two former members of Ukrainian NSBM band Nokturnal Mortum in it, but Elderblood doesn’t appear to be political in nature. While Nokturnal Mortum has gone the Folk Metal route, gradually altering their Symphonic Black Metal style to incorporate more Graveland-esque Slavic Folk into their music, Odalv and Astargh (along with ex-Symuran guitarist Hagalth, here handling bass duty) have formed a new band that goes back to the older Dimmu Borgir/Emperor style. Son of the Morning is this group’s first release, but you would never know that by listening to it. This is seriously impressive. The production is top notch, the songs are well written, and everything sounds and flows like a band that knows what they’re doing. I hadn’t expected this album to be so good, but pleasant surprises are always welcome. I almost expect a band’s debut LP to sound like crap these days because so many of them do. A lot of groups don’t even develop an identity until their fifth or sixth release. You don’t see bands coming out with a strong Symphonic sound and Classically-influenced keyboards on their first LP very often. What I liked most about this is that while the keyboards play a prominent role in Elderblood’s sound, they never forget to keep the guitars in there. There are times that the keyboards and the guitars sort of blend together, but that has more to do with their tonal ranges coinciding than it does to the loudness of either instrument. If you’re a fan of Symphonic Black Metal in the vein of Dimmu Borgir, this is definitely an album to check out.
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