Search - Immortal :: Blizzard Beasts

The beasts of black metal

Smithy1185 | San Diego, CA USA | 09/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although I personally think that this cd isn't quite as good as some of Immortal's other albums, it certainly isn't a bad cd by any means. The songs create an icy winter atmosphere in which the vocals and instruments rage on until around the middle of the song and then they go into these awesome instrumental pieces that really make you feel like your out in blizzard. The quality and production isn't fantastic but its better than some of their first albums. Overall, if your a fan of Immortal then this cd is a must have, but if your just getting into them then I would recommend one of their other cds instead."

This one is, well, a "Beast"

A. Stutheit | Denver, CO USA | 01/21/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Aside from its two founding members, Abbath and Demonaz, Immortal just couldn't seem to maintain a steady lineup early on. In fact, this was the case all the way up until 1996 (seven years after the band's inception!). Fortunately, they then found a little drummer extraordinaire by the name of Reidar Horghagen (you know him better simply as Horgh), and things only went uphill from there. And yes, granted, 1997's "Blizzard Beasts" added little innovation to the band's sound, and it does have a flat production job and really short running time (at 28 minutes, it's about as long as the average EP). But to this reviewer's ears, "Blizzard Beasts" has aged surprisingly well, because it has proven to be a worthy progression from `95's "Battles in the North," as well as an invigorating listen, and an extremely caustic album that is filled with stellar musicianship. Stylistically, Immortal's core sound (classic black metal) remains in tact, but this album also fuses in strong American death metal and German thrash influences. So, in other words, it sounds like Immortal meets Morbid Angel by way of Sodom/Kreator.



"Mountains of Might" is the album's clear highpoint, as it is a very dark, frigidly cold, and brilliantly majestic and ambient, six-and-a-half-minute-long epic that foretells of the kind of direction Immortal would take on subsequent releases (i.e. 1999's "At the Heart of Winter"). It begins with almost a minute worth of nice, eerie, symphonic keyboards from Abbath, and even though the rest of the band then storm on with fiery guitars and pounding drums, the song remains somewhat restrained throughout (it's still plenty fast, but compared to the rest of the songs, it's fairly slow.) Meanwhile, Abbath puts his typical shrieking/yelling on the back burner in favor of freakish spoken-word vocals that tell chillingly poetic lyrics. "Mountains of Might" flirts with melody, too, because it also features two pretty, tranquil bridges. "Winter of the Ages," with its great, fiery, machine gun riffs, equally as brutal drumming, well-placed keyboard touches, and fairly long, shredding solo, and "Suns That Sank Below," which is all circular, crunching, cascading riffs and crashing percussion, are to other big standouts on hand here. And elsewhere, more familiar tracks like the title cut, the Mayhem-esque "Nebular Ravens Winter" and "Frostdemonstorm" are all completely blown out black metal hurricanes of impossibly tight interplay between the retching, frog-throated rasps, great, razor-sharp, smoke-inducing buzzsaw riffs (which evoke vintage Morbid Angel, circa 1989's "Altars of Madness"), and Horgh's amazing, hyperspeed, skull-splitting blast beats.



"Blizzard Beasts" is a very good, yet very overlooked and underrated, album from Immortal, and it should be considered a great transitional album for the band (since it does show their sound evolving a little). In the grand scheme of things, "BB" is not essential listening, but it is certainly well-done enough to be recommended for all diehard fans of brutal black metal."