Svartsyn – Wrath Upon The Earth

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Agonia Records
Produced by Baruch van Bellegem & Zoran van Bellegem

Sweden’s Svartsyn formed in 1993 when black metal as we know it today was still in its infancy. They’re not talked about with the likes of Darkthrone or Immortal when people talk about the crucial bands of the second wave, and none of their six full-lengths have the accolades or the reverence of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas or Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. Still, something has to be said for longevity, right?

In Svartsyn’s case, perhaps not. It’s not that their brand of black metal is particularly bad – their countrymen in Watain have taken a similar formula and released several masterpieces with it. It’s just wholly unmemorable. The songs uniformly rely on hard-hit drums and blastbeats, chromatic riffs and highly decipherable black metal vocals that occasionally stray into death metal territory. It’s plenty grim, and no one is likely to accuse it of being anything besides true black metal, but there’s just not much meat on its bones. We’ve heard it all before, and we’ve heard it better.

The band’s instrumental prowess is evident, especially when the tempo picks up as in the outro to album closer He Who Knows, and their strengths as songwriters of black metal that still has hooks come through in spades on My Mountain, but as long as bands like Watain and Lightning Swords of Death do this better, it’ll be hard to justify Svartsyn’s existence. Wrath Upon The Earth is a good album, but knowing that there’re great albums just like it makes it difficult to listen to more than once.

“ not much meat on its bones ”

Tracklist: Intro / Wrath of Leviathan / My Mountain / Deathsworned / Dawn of Triumph / Pyramids of Deathlight / Blood Temple / He Who Knows

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Svartsyn