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Finland's black metal project Vargrav has set 15 December as the release date for its third full-length, The Nighthold. The album will come out via Werewolf Records on CD and cassette tape. The vinyl version will follow next year.
From the dawn of the classic debut album, Netherstorm, in 2018, Vargrav has almost single-handedly reinvigorated the oft-maligned symphonic black metal subgenre. Forged in fires from the ancients - founder V-Khaoz's credentials are vast and stretch back decades - and stoking the embers last left by Obtained Enslavement and Norway's Covenant and Odium, Vargrav's two albums to date stand as proud pillars of shimmering, classics-based obsidian.
As momentous as those two full-lengths have been, Vargrav arguably eclipses both with its new album, The Nighthold. With a line-up that now includes the notorious Graf Werwolf von Armageddon on vocals and Moonsorrow's members Trollhorn on guitars/bass, and Baron M. Tarwonen on drums, Vargrav's swirling, cosmic surge has never been more potent; its attack is both sharper and dreamier, crystal-clear and opaque simultaneously. That added clarity creates more immediacy as The Nighthold kicks in, for the aggression of old is kicked into overdrive here, and the synths take on a truly orchestral aspect. It's not for nothing that the album is a full hour in length: everything here sounds (and feels) huge, one massive velvety purple landscape of stained-glass visions as far as the third eye can see. All 12 tracks are threaded together in a plausibly cinematic manner, while each is mighty in its own respective right, Vargrav sequences every song with artistic flair and high drama, concluding the immersive experience with a daresay-soulful guitar solo during the coda of "Creator Of The True Real" that then segues into the nearly-10-minute big-screen instrumental "Ghostlands".
It is thus not unjust to liken this achievement to Covenant's classic Nexus Polaris. The second era of Vargrav has hereby begun with The Nighthold!
In the meantime, hear Vargrav's latest revealed track, "Chalice Of Silver And Blood"... Link
The Nighthold tracklist:
01. Moonless Abyss of the Nighthold
02. Through the Woods of Breathing Shadows
03. Chalice of Silver and Blood
04. Thy Imperial Malice
05. Curse of the Plaguewood Lake
06. Encircle the Spectral Dimension
07. Triumph of the Nightbringer
08. Into the Shadow Crypts
09. The One Who Lurks Beyond the Starscape
10. A Dark Consecration
11. Creator of the True Real
12. Ghostlands
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