Kev Rowland
It is hard to believe that Peter Tägtgren (guitar, vocals), Mikael Hedlund (bass) and Reidar “Horgh” Horghagen (drums), came back together in 2021 to record their first new album in eight years. Horgh has since left the band he has been in since 2004, but one cannot see Tägtgren stopping work on the band he founded all the way back in 1992, 30 years ago. He famously returned to Sweden after living in the States for a while, with a very different view on death metal, releasing the debut album they same year he formed the band and they have been active in both touring and recording ever since, with the current eight-year gap being the longest between any of their albums.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their following, many people have been raving over the latest release from the melodic death metal merchants, conveniently overlooking one minor fact, it’s not very good. Sure, the playing is top notch as one would expect given those involved (I mean, Horgh joined Immortal all the way back in 1996), but the material just is not there. In some ways it feels like they are going through the motions and I soon found I was wondering how much longer it had to go which is never a good thing when playing an album. Fans will probably get a lot out of this, but for me there is just not enough vitality and variation to make this indispensable.