Vehemency
Now here's a poor release, in all honesty. While I found the debut album Extermination a promising release, the band has clearly went downhill since then. The music is still basic Darkthrone worship as was the first album, but many things have now gone wrong with this one.
To list them one by one: First, the production is really lame. The guitars are somewhere in the background (bass guitar is of course non-existent) and what we have at the top are the overly triggered and compressed drums that sound terribly, horribly plastic. While the album does breathe more than the debut, this is still definitely not a turn for the better.
The compositions themselves are rather uninspired and powerless, especially with this kind of a dull production. The music is mainly mid-tempo whle occasional fast blast beats do appear ("The Sacrifice" being a good example, and please do hear what the triggered drums sound like in that speed, haha). Also, the songs are way too long, resulting in a 50-minute snoozefest.
Every album I review gets more than just 2 listenings but I'm afraid I can't go through this album more times than that. A real disappointment. Luckily I still haven't heard the album Grim Satanic Blessing that was released between this and the debut, so maybe there's still hope in there.