Candlelight USA, 2002, stan bdb-

I don't know much about this band, but they are a very interesting and experimental new one-man project (a guy called Sauron) from Malta. Well, not really new, since he started in1993 but his first (and currently only) full length didn’t hit the streets until 2002. It looks like Sauron has struggled quite a bit getting serious attention with the demos and finally recording the full length. This album’s songs were written over the course of seven years, The two songs with vocals were leftover and reworked from the demos, (one from 1995, one from 1997) and the two instrumental songs after the demo (one in 2000, one in 98-99). I've never heard of any other band from Malta so that caught my attention, of course, after a friend suggested them to me. I love long, winding songs with a thousand different ideas and melodies/riffs, and switching back and forth to super-heavy parts and soft melodious parts. This album probably has the best contrast between total brutality and amazing, clean instrumental passages that I’ve heard since discovering Agalloch. They don't really switch from soft/heavy too suddenly though like Opeth's Morningrise for example, they ease into it more. I’d say this album is about 80% instrumental. Two songs are totally instrumental, that’s about half right there, and the other two have vocals mostly at the beginning for around 6-7 minutes and then the rest of the track is instrumental. "Victory" is a 6 minute instrumental opener track with a lot of synths/flutes/harps and a dark, icy medieval theme, along with a few roaring guitars. It *might* seem cheesy to some people but I really don't think so, I think it's quite epic and adventurous and excellently done to foreshadow the parts of songs that the listener will be hearing soon. "The Maimed God" is a 16-minute song that begins with a faint synth’d violin melody, then rapidly turns into a violent black metal rampage with brilliant riffs, lots of synths and keyboards in the background, and harsh black metal style vocals. He makes it sound like there are multiple vocalists by manipulating “one” of the voices. After the first 7 or so minutes of vocals in this song, the chaos suddenly falls and there is a calm, icy synthetic melody that keeps shifting and changing to take you away to the vast mountains of... Malta. It kind of reminds me of Satyricon's "Dark Medieval Times" (the song itself) but even more varied and interesting. After that, there is a medieval violin melody which turns into an ominous, yet heroic low-pitched melody. The song turns into the heavier edge again, with some whispering and a few screams here and there, and keeps going for a little while more before fading into sounds of the icy stream. "Raise the Dragon Banner" suddenly starts, and is similar to the second track; it begins the same way, and is 11 minutes. The beginning is quite thrashy and very fast with amazing riffs. About 7 minutes into the song, suddenly there is a scream and with that, the chaos suddenly stops and transforms into some mournful piano playing and the rest of the song is instrumental, with both heavy and soft parts, with guitars, pianos, and atmospheric sounds. "Kingdom" is the real treat here; it’s an overwhelming, epic instrumental. It's the song I heard before buying the CD, and the song that made me want to buy it. It starts with an intro that assures you it's going to be an epic masterpiece, which slowly keeps adding instruments to the same melody, unfolding to a grand climax then starting very fast guitars for a minute or so, then collapses into a soft acoustic melody, a warm touch to the song. The ideas keep flowing for the duration of the song, the innovation never burns out or sounds redundant, and leads up to a truly fantastic ending, including a little harp playing. When it is finally over it truly doesn’t sound like it was over 16 minutes, which is an indication this guy knows how to make a song totally lure you in and forget about the rest of the universe. Fans of Ulver's black metal, Borknagar, Emperor, Satyricon, Summoning, probably Bathory based on Sauron’s obvious influences from them, and maybe Arcturus will probably like this, I can’t think of bands more similar... Maybe even Agalloch fans will like it, I know I love Agalloch and they have some similarities but it’s kind of a stretch. All this talk of synths and keyboards will probably repel most people, but I personally don’t think they are cheesy, all bands are different and this is what this band consists of. All I know is, I like this a lot and you should buy it if you like atmospheric black metal. This is quite possibly the best CD that I’ve discovered in 2004 so far. I really, really hope this guy comes out with some more albums, because based on this, he has potential by the truckload and I can’t wait to hear what else he comes up with. I just hope he can make what can be considered a full discography before I am a great-grandfather. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really mind the fact that this took 9 years to come out, if that’s how long it takes to make something this good, then ok, but I just hope he can do it a little faster.