(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by the Italian band Lorn, which has just been released by I, Voidhanger Records.)
Black metal has rarely achieved that truly evil, blasphemous, horror sound that many bands have aspired to. It wasn’t until the style took a more melodic, progressive, and esoterically melodic approach that I started to care about it in the early 2000s or so. I don’t like Burzum, Bathory, or Darkthrone. Emperor was where my taste for the music started, and in following suit, all of my favorite black metal comes from that Emperor school of thought… until recently.
I suppose I couldn’t help but feel that first-wave and some second-wave black metal was just rather cartoony or something. I couldn’t take it seriously. I always wanted to hear an album or EP from this genre that truly succeeded in capturing the sound of a pit of hell opening up, or being trapped inside a dank chamber with a bunch of banshees torturing you with non-stop blood-curdling shrieks until you were incapable of knowing peace, sanity, or anything but the endless wail.
Lorn has done that. Continue reading »