Antestor - Return of the Black Death (1999)
This is a fine piece of "black" metal art. The sound is more along the lines of the "new school" of black metal (ala 1999 Cradle of Filth). RotBD is haunting, incorporating some keyboards for atmosphere, lots of melodic guitar lines and even throwing in a couple of doom songs. The tempo throughout remains mostly mid-paced but does have some double bass and blast beats scattered about. The best thing is how totally original this sounds, most black metal bands sound like clones of each other but Antestor has developed a style all thier own. The vocals are some of the best I have heard in this genre of music and they truly give any other Norwegian band a run for their money. There are 11 tracks (an intro and outro make up tracks 1 and 11) and 8 out of those are sung in Norwegian. The songs that are sung in English have great lyrics that reflect this bands beliefs in our risen Saviour. This is a must-have cd for any fan of black metal. It is simply that good. -- Review by Norm