SilentScream213 The legendary Storm of the Light’s Bane is considered perhaps the greatest Meloblack album ever put to record, and for good reason. Every track is chock full of dark and icy riffs, thanks in part to its heavy Melodeath influence. You see that beautiful cover art with the reaper on horseback amongst a nocturnal tundra mountain scape? Yeah, this album just sounds like that. The beauty of cold, night, and death are all emanating from the electrifying songwriting here.

Black Metal tends to be a bit one note, and Meloblack is a much more purposeful aversion of that, but even among Meloblack, Dissection give us progressive, complicated, ever changing songwriting with weaves and turns up and down the mountains and through the evergreens. Even some acoustic passages give reprieve from that arctic assault. The vocals are fantastic, quite intelligible and death-touched shrieks. Drumming is lightning quick, but flows like a stream, full of smooth transitions and interesting fills, liberal use of double bass, a perfect mix of interesting and challenging. I need not go on about the guitars; awe-inspiring.

Dissection seem to love sandwiching their masterpiece compositions between useless intros and outros, so unfortunately bookending the album with the weakest and most boring tracks damages its listenability. Other than that, no flaws.

UMUR "Storm of the Light's Bane" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Swedish black/death metal act Dissection. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in November 1995. There´s been one lineup change since the release of "The Somberlain (1993)" as guitarist John Zwetsloot has been replaced by Johan Norman. Dissection was formed in 1989 and in their original run existed until 1997, when they had to disband as a consequence of lead vocalist/guitarist Jon Nödtveidt having to serve his prison sentence for being convicted as an accessory to murder.

Stylistically the music on "Storm of the Light's Bane" continues the blackened death metal style of "The Somberlain (1993)", but it leans a bit more on the black metal side of the band´s sound than was the case on the predecessor. It´s still a very melodic type of black/death metal with heavy use of guitar harmonies (and the occasional acoustic section and use of folk melodies). There are a few thrashy riffs featured on the album too, but the dominant style is melodic black metal. The vocals are raspy black metal type vocals.

Dissection masterfully create a cold yet epic atmosphere and paired with their considerable playing skills, it´s not hard to understand why so many people hold "Storm of the Light's Bane" in such high regard. It´s one of those albums where they hit the right balance between rawness and melody, which means they don´t go overboard with any of them but instead the listener is treated to both very melodic and very harsh parts, which combined creates the high quality material featured on the album.

It doesn´t make things worse that the album also features a clear, professional, yet raw sounding production, which does the music a lot of justice and helps make it shine. So upon conclusion "Storm of the Light's Bane" is a high quality release and while "The Somberlain (1993)" was certainly a great debut album, I think this sophomore release is just a notch more focused and the songwriting a bit more memorable. A 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.

Warthur Perhaps it's the influence of melodic death metal in the country's extreme metal scene, but the Swedish black metal crew seem to have been substantially more interested in fancy-pants musicanship than their rougher, rawer Norwegian comrades. Perhaps it's no surprise that it's Swedish bands like Dissection who spearheaded the development of more melodic forms of black metal. Essentially a reiteration of the style they pioneered on The Somberlain, Dissection's Storm of the Light's Bane offers up black metal in a deceptively accessible form; it's black metal for those who like to be able to hear what the individual musicians are doing and like the odd melodic solo here or there. Though I don't think it's the eye-opener The Somberlain was, it's still a more than worthy follow-up which proves that the first incarnation of Dissection were still fresh and full of ideas and potential before Jon Nödtveidt pissed it all away with his involvement in a disgustingly pointless murder.