GRAVELAND Impaler's Wolves (1999) CD

Rob Darken has never been interested in your approval, and that's exactly why Graveland matters. Since crawling out of the Polish underground in the early nineties, Darken's project has been one of the most uncompromising forces in epic black metal, a one-man war machine draped in paganism, synth grandeur, and frost-bitten riffs that owe as much to Bathory's Viking era as they do to the rawer traditions of the genre.

Impaler's Wolves arrived in 1999 as a mini album bridging the gap between Graveland's increasingly ambitious full-lengths, and it earns its place. Shorter doesn't mean lesser here. The tracks carry that signature atmosphere, dense and atmospheric, like torchlight through a forest at the wrong hour. If you came in through Immortal Pride or Following the Voice of Blood, this fills the shelf nicely. If you're new to Graveland, this is a solid entry point into some of the most singular dark metal Poland has produced.

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

Fans of: Burzum, Immortal, Bathory, Behemoth, Dark Forest