GRAVELAND Creed Of Iron (2000) CD

By 2000, Rob Darken had fully shed whatever remained of Graveland's early raw black metal skin and emerged as something stranger and more singular, a composer of pagan epics draped in synth, steel, and Slavic mythology. Creed of Iron is the full realisation of that vision.

This is epic black metal at its most cinematic, the kind of record that sounds like a battle that happened a thousand years ago and was never written down by anyone sympathetic. Darken's guitar work sits under sweeping keyboard arrangements that shouldn't work and absolutely do, while the production, raw but deliberate, keeps it rooted in the metal underground rather than drifting into new age territory. It's a divisive record in some circles, which is usually a sign it's doing something right.

CD format. Country of origin: Poland. Genre: Epic Black Metal.

Fans of: Bathory, Burzum, Primordial, Drudkh, Nokturnal Mortum