This is my first Shining album, though I've read quite a bit of praise for their previous material. I'm a bit split on this one. First, you have some really good basic Swedish Black Metal with rough, throaty vocals full of aggression and with a hint of despair (fucking great vocal work here.) Throw in a healthy dose of grinding melody that blends seamlessly into this, and you've got a real winner here as far as the Black Metal parts are concerned. In fact, this thing almost rocks – it just grabs you and doesn't let go and keeps you begging for more. Some more experimental, progressive parts keep things interesting.
Then you have the very mellow, non-metal stuff. There's quite a bit of this on the album. Most of the time I don't mind this, but there's just too much of it on here, and there are times when it gets too repetitive and boring, especially toward the end of the album. Now your mileage may vary on this – it's all up to... "personal tolerance" I guess. It's certainly well done, but I like more meat in a metal album. Despite this, I always feel the urge to play the album over and over, if only because of the awesomeness of Shining's Black Metal – raw yet melodic and somewhat intricate and experimental, these guys blow away all those artsy BM bands that can only dream to achieve a blend such as this. Crank up the rating a bit if you don't mind repetitive acoustic passages, but either way Black Metal fans who want some experimentation should snatch this up.
