Band:	Avenger (CZE)
Album:	Bohemian Dark Metal
Style:	Black metal, Death metal
Release date:	March 2012

01. Vítej zpátky doma? v krajině smutku a beznaděje
02. Fale? a apatie
03. Du?evní chirurgie
04. Vstříc dálkám
05. Umírání ?ivotem
06. Z Jeho krve
07. Hleďme, plamen du?e!
08. Dark Metal

"Dark metal", according to Avenger's press release, is some kind of umbrella term to describe the amalgamation of death, black and doom metal. Now, when a band applies a fringe term like that to themselves, it generally means it's going to be some bland crap that needed to be given some sort of moniker so it has some sort of selling point. Oddly enough, Avenger aren't entirely generic.

All one needs to do is take one listen to the opening track to see that this band actually packs a punch. It almost sounds as if you took the riff appeal of Deströyer 666, mixed it with more traditional black metal fury a la Taake, then added a dash or two of Watain level crustiness. At that point, simply make the guitars sound absolutely massive. It's not exactly the most original album in existence, yet it's still distinct. The spectrum of the sounds amalgamated here is pretty small, but the way they manage to translate these sounds into both the doomish, the blast-beat drenched, top speed black metal, as well as a few off-kilter death metal riffs shows that the members of Avenger paid a certain level of attention to making sure Bohemian Dark Metal is not a stagnant sounding release.

There is, however, not an unnoticeable amount of unbearably generic moments. These occur almost entirely during the fastest paced moments, where the blast beats take over and the riffs are indistinguishable. Doom speed? Massively evil sounding. Thrash speed? Furious, yet catchy. Hyper-black metal speed? Boring and generic. The variation in tempos is much appreciated, but unfortunately in this case it really did nothing to further the album.

Avenger definitely have put out a quality (mostly) black metal release with Bohemian Dark Metal. Ignoring a few yawn-worthy missteps, this is actually one worth checking out.