Vehemency Now here's a poor release, in all honesty. While I found the debut album Extermination a promising release, the band has clearly went downhill since then. The music is still basic Darkthrone worship as was the first album, but many things have now gone wrong with this one.

To list them one by one: First, the production is really lame. The guitars are somewhere in the background (bass guitar is of course non-existent) and what we have at the top are the overly triggered and compressed drums that sound terribly, horribly plastic. While the album does breathe more than the debut, this is still definitely not a turn for the better.

The compositions themselves are rather uninspired and powerless, especially with this kind of a dull production. The music is mainly mid-tempo whle occasional fast blast beats do appear ("The Sacrifice" being a good example, and please do hear what the triggered drums sound like in that speed, haha). Also, the songs are way too long, resulting in a 50-minute snoozefest.

Every album I review gets more than just 2 listenings but I'm afraid I can't go through this album more times than that. A real disappointment. Luckily I still haven't heard the album Grim Satanic Blessing that was released between this and the debut, so maybe there's still hope in there.

Vehemency Amystery’s debut full-length provides decent underground black metal, but that is unfortunately the downside of the album too. When you put this album on, you know exactly what the next 40 minutes will bring. Sometimes I don’t care about predictability but this time the constant Darkthrone riffs get a bit tedious.

Extermination... has its moments, though. ”Metamorphose” belongs to the standout tracks of the album with its epic riffs throughout, and the same applies to the last track ”Icy Kingdom” too. Good riffs appear every now than then throughout the album, but often the songs fall too much into mediocrity. If the whole album had tracks like the previously mentioned ones, Extermination... would be a very enjoyable experience.

If we get into details, Nephesus’ harsh screams are worth mentioning, he does his job well. The drum sound is something I’m not really fond of: the snare drum sounds plastic, and if this kind of little things would have been taken care of, Extermination... would already be a lot better album. I believe two stars is an appropriate score overall, but certain moments make it worth of a half star more.