Amsvartner
The Trollish Mirror
Metal Blade / Blackend
There’s no doubting that a slew of bands are still waiting At the Gates for a Dissection, but that’s no wonder when such innovative and groundbreaking records as Slaughter of the Soul and Storm of the Light’s Bane (respectively) hit the underground and elsewhere, which brings us to Amsvartner’s The Trollish Mirror . Staying true to the Gothenburg tradition, this Swedish five-piece fuses interlocking melodic riffs, pastoral acoustic interludes, trollish vox, and punkish hyper-speed into a familiar black-death metal ore. To Amsvartner’s credit, there’s a certain trainwreck tightness/chaos about The Trollish Mirror ‘s four cuts of flamethrowing that vaguely treads early Voivod territory, tin-can drum production and all: brainy stuff, but lacking the necessary emotional depth to make such mathematics work in the real world (e.g., college calculus); budding riffmeisters take note. [Note: This record was released almost two years ago, but somehow it landed in our laps.]
Metal Blade Records, 2828 Cochran St., Suite 302, Simi Valley, CA 93065-2793; http://www.metalblade.com
