Satan, war, hatred, blasphemy and a nice digipack in the shape of an inverted cross. There are all the conditions for doing badly, and we almost actually succeed. There are illustrious names, however Satanic North: Petri Lindroos And Janne Parviainen of the Ensiferum And Samuli Ponsimaa of the Finntroll to design an artwork that best represents what you are going to listen to. Finnish black metal, nothing more, nothing less. From the first listens you immediately perceive how the production on this album is a big problem: the drums have very high volumes and the kick, especially in the faster parts, more or less dominates everything. The guitar is left behind and never gets the bite it should, you can often hear the bass much clearer and more defined. There are also gaps in the arrangements and the riffing, which often leads to a rather basic death sound, would require a second guitar like hotcakes: in fact there are very few harmonizations and the six strings always seem to be left there firing blank cartridges. It doesn’t help either that the songwriting seems like a b-side from Finland that counts and which, at the end of the day, offers nothing truly memorable. There are some flashes scattered throughout the tracklist, but it’s all too little to be able to aspire to a longevity greater than that of a mosquito.
However, great care was placed in the vocal lines, which make a good impression and are often supported by choirs coming from some tomb with excellent results. Satanic North it seems like a work conceived from the gut, written from the gut and recorded from the gut; the problem is that, if you are already anachronistic in your assumptions and the album you propose does not have any level of excellence, you risk ending up forgotten very quickly.
Considering the names involved, it was reasonable to expect much more; instead we find ourselves in the hands of a pleasant but painless album, which wants to be bad but fails miserably. A small, stale divertissement while waiting for the new album by Ensiferumwho we hope will enjoy better luck.
