GRAVELAND The Fire Of Awakening (2003) CD

Rob Darken has never been interested in your approval, and that's exactly why Graveland matters. While the Norwegian second wave was eating itself alive in the mid-nineties, this Polish one-man operation was building something slower, more grandiose, and genuinely unsettling, an epic black metal vision rooted in Slavic paganism and uncompromising atmosphere.

Released in 2003, The Fire of Awakening sits deep in Graveland's imperial period, after Darken had shed the raw primitiveness of Carpathian Wolves and leaned hard into sweeping, orchestral darkness. This is black metal that thinks in terms of ancient forests and funeral pyres, not rehearsal room recordings. If Bathory's Viking era and Burzum's most atmospheric moments had a child raised on Polish mythology, it would sound something like this.

CD pressing, jewel case. Full length album. Country of origin: Poland. Genre: epic black metal.

Fans of: Behemoth, Burzum, Bathory, Immortal, Goatmoon, Abbath, Dark Forest.