voila_la_scorie A few years ago, I returned to metal music with a great lust for finding out all that I had missed between the early nineties when I more or less gave up on most new metal releases and the mid-2010's when, thanks to prog metal and Opeth, I came back to my first love in music: metal. One of the subgenres I needed to find out about was black metal. Of course I picked up as many off the classic albums as I could plus I checked out other popular albums. Some of the albums to make deep impressions on me were Dimmu Borgir's "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant", Negura Bunget's "Om", and Emperor's "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk".

Arctos is a band I discovered on bandcamp while searching for black metal artists. Hailing from Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, this band has only this one album and an ep release to their credit, but - wow! - do they ever sound like a full-blown professional black metal band! They have the melodic riffs, the blast beats, and the harsh vocals down to a level that is awesome! And thanks to the keyboards, they have a symphonic side to some of their songs that makes me think of "Enthrone Darkness Triumphant".

This is an album that typifies black metal in any ways, but it also steps outside the box a little by including nearly spoken parts in clean vocals or almost chanted lyrics with what sounds like the whole band joining in. However, more than that, Arctos actually has a piano player credited to their roster. Though of course the symphonic feel must come from the synthesizers, the occasional cold and sombre piano playing I find to be a very suitable and complementary to the music.

Arctos have here an album of symphonic and melodic black metal that I find so good that it's almost a spiritual awakening. For now, I recommend checking out "Shattered Tomb" though really any track makes as good an impression. The production quality - the sound of the recording - is also really great! This is an album that I enjoy from start to finish with highlights all along the way!