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Finland's black metal ban Black Beast has announced 25 November as the release date for its second album Arctic Darkness, which will be out through Primitive Reaction. The band has also unleashed its first upcoming album's track, "Black Magic And Witchcraft", which awaits you in the player below.
Black Beast was, for many years, the great "what if?" of Finnish black metal. Formed in 2002, when Finnish black metal was only beginning to assert its dominance over the underground, Black Beast released a self-titled EP in 2005 and, a year later, a split album with comrades Bloodhammer, which was the first release by a then-young Primitive Reaction. Across both recordings, the then-duo exhibited a sound that slotted well alongside the prevailing Finnish paradigm yet refreshingly exuded a Motorheaded aspect (or at least one Venomous) that was ass-kicking to the extreme.
The name Black Beast then receded into the shadows and appeared again in 2019 with its long-awaited debut album, Nocturnal Bloodlust. Now a power-trio, Black Beast indeed picked up exactly where they left off... and then pumped that quintessential Finnish black metal full of black magick, witchcraft, and (of course) nocturnal bloodlust. The result was just as ass-kicking as before, charging hard and giving no quarter, though the trio also managed to lace that waste with a tasteful touch of atmosphere, underlining that it truly is a black metal band above all.
Presumably here to stay, Black Beast returns to survey the carnage with its second album Arctic Darkness. A simple-yet-elegant title, Arctic Darkness is the sound of Black Beast maximizing that atmosphere. The Motorcharge is most definitely still there, as is the almost-sexual surge suggestive of classic Impaled Nazarene - grandfathers of both Finnish black metal and bringing back the Motorhead influence into black metal at large - but with a subtly subliminal glaze of synths and a wider variation of tempos and general songcraft, the now-quartet march into new realms across this Arctic Darkness (bassist Xilocybe joined the band prior to the album); only witness the utterly epic ten-minute closer, "Hymn Of The Freezing Wind," where clean 'n' chorused guitars play counterpoint to a sleazy four-on-the-floor beat... truly, this landscape is a much more brazen one.
No more "what if?" and just more of what is - Black Beast plants its feet firmly in the snow with Arctic Darkness. Link
Arctic Darkness tracklist:
01. Intro
02. Black Magic and Witchcraft
03. Fullmoon
04. Sadistic Act in Demonic Lust
05. Four Days in Paradise of Fornication
06. Depths of Damnation
07. Kuoleman Kylmästä Kosketuksesta
08. Night of the Arctic Darkness
09. I am He
10. Summon the Angels
11. Hymn of the Freezing Wind
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