Band:	Angmar
Album:	Metamorphosis
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	December 2005

01. Résurgence
02. Dead Nation
03. Normannia
04. Homini Delenda Est
05. Metamorphosis
06. When The World Overturns
07. Supreme Being
08. Le Paria
09. In Die Unterwelt

A Black Metal band named after one of Tolkien's immortal creations. Jeez, doesn't that story sound awkwardly familiar? If I would get a dollar for every band… My first encounter with this band was when I bought their split vinyl with Alcest. At some later point I also ordered their debut and only full-length so far, and forgot about it in its entirity. Fortunately for the French Angmar, something triggered them in my mind again and I found myself relistening to their music.

And it must be said, while being anything but original, it is far from bad either. Judging by the cover, I expected romantic Black Metal, in the vein of Mystic Forest or Alcest, a style that does rather well these days. But you should never judge a book by its cover. Well-produced, yet slightly corrosive Black Metal, is the name of the game here. Both the drums and the guitars have a crunchy sound, which effectuates the 'raw' feeling. Most of the songwriting is also rather typical. No choruses or anything of the sort, just going forward and forward with a little interlude for a breath of fresh air every once in a while. Add some typical harsh screams to that, and the formula is complete. Well, almost.

Going against Black Metal's standards, their bass is rather apparent. In most songs the bass serves as a moody replacement of the guitars as melodymaker. As the guitars are too occupied creating distortion, the bass have assigned themselves to noble task of giving the music a melodic edge. And it works quite well. Often you still have to focus to really hear the bass, but once you have targetted it, it is hard to let it go. It might even be my favourite instrument on this album.

In the end, "Metamorphosis" is not an album that will end up in my cd-player on a regular basis. But that's mostly because I'm a picky bastard with too much different styles of music to listen to. If you are one of those that wants to delve deeply into Black Metal and doesn't really care about originality, here is another one for you.