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Svartsyn: Black testament

08/08/13 || sincan

Once upon a time there was a kid named whatever. He was about 15 years old and dreamt of standing on stage, screaming like a crying belieber, getting all the chicks and being famous all over the world because of his totally awesome band consisting of dudes with emo haircuts delivering breakdowns as often as this kind of music sucks (that is: always). Then there was this guy, we can call him Ornias, who just wanted to play some serious fucking black metal of no trends whatsoever. Ornias succeeded, the other kid did not since it’s not that cool acting like a 15 year old pubertal kid during the entire lifetime.

Well if we (me and my other alter egos) skip the stories and starts to talk about the album instead we can all soon continue with our lives, pull our weights, in the majestic life of a sheep (now I’m not talking about me anymore).

So what I’m going to describe here is the new album from Svartsyn. Yes, I know, who needs any further introduction? We all know about Svartsyn, right guys? No? I see some of you out there waving with your eye covering bangs so that you can see what you’re reading, hm I guess I should enlighten you. Svartsyn is a Swedish black metal band, or solo project, hailing from the dark year of 93. Svartsyn has released some killer albums like “…His majesty” but a special mention must be made here, the split with Arckanum named “Kaos svarta mar/Skinning the lambs”. Not that hard to distinguish who did what part, to bad not all lambs were skinned by Svartsyn. The split should be in every persons collection, oh man, each Arckanum track has the trademarked riffing of perfection by Shamaatae and the Svartsyn tracks has the well known reverb vocals of Ornias.

Black testament, taste the title. Yes, indeed it comes with some expectations when using such a title. One also knows what to expect from it when knowing the circumstances we deal with here. Play with the mind game of a band called “Set the Sky On Fire” using such an album title, then we all know that the color black on the testament is from tear removed eyeliner. But in the real case were Svartsyn uses this title it is most likely only partially blackened with the tears of harassed core kids, the rest is from a darker dwell than that.

The album has a much clearer production compared to older material like the split or “…His majesty” and the sound effects added to the vocals are still there, but might be used a bit less this time. However, don’t get fooled now, the production is still approved for being used in black metal, no question about that part. This is one of a really few more modern elements on this album, along with the now typical strings of serpents riffing, on the third track Venom of the mind, being used by bands like Watain and more apparent by Deathspell Omega.

The foundation is that of timeless black metal, as in well executed. The song writing is also of a high quality with many tracks being easily separated (relatively, it’s still black metal here and not ABBA) from each other. Another fine piece of art to check out is the track Demoness with seven names just to convince you further into joining the pessimistic philosophy of life. Oh, and no, I haven’t skipped the Swedish lesson for you guys! Svartsyn means pessimism, not the most common word used for it though.

8,5

Information
Released: 2013
Label: Agonia Records
Website: www.svartsyn.com
Band
Ornias: vocals, guitars
Hammerman (session): drums

Tracklist
01. Intro
02. Revelation in the waters
03. Venom of the underworld
04. Demoness with seven names
05. Carving a temple
06. Eyes of the Earth
07. Rising beast
08. Black testament

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