Band:	Battle Dagorath
Album:	Eternal Throne
Style:	Ambient black metal
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Dämmerstunde (Einklang)
02. Dead Eyes Of The Moon
03. Ruin Upon The Mountainside
04. The Dark Fire, The Black Gate
05. The Marching Shadows Of Eternal Death
06. Under The Warlord Spell
07. Carn Dûm
08. In The Forest Of Frozen Darkness
09. Archetyp Des Schicksals (Ausklang)

The US Black Metal scene has never been the most famous one but always provided good bands, especially lately with combos like Wolves In The Throne Room or Nachtmystium (to give some few names). It seems however that the genre is growing oversea and more and more combos release albums which even find a way to be signed by European labels. Classy isn't it? Well yes certainly but probably because they know how to do good black in USA too! Battle Dagorath is one of those bands and maybe that you should try to find their first album, "Ethernal Throne".

The good thing with American Black Metal combos is that they're original or truly classic. What I want to mean here is that I rarely found Black Metal releases from USA which follow a trend or just try to be accessible or commercial. WITTR for example is absolutely "crazy" and Battle Dagorath is just pure classic Black Metal but impossible to find a Dimmu Borgir or COF here, you see what I mean? The first album of Battle Dagorath is not especially original and on a side you'll not discover a band which will give you the feeling that you're in front of THE discovery of the year but still, the music of "Ethernal Throne" is solid, disturbing and especially dark and naughty. One more time with one of the last signatures of Cold Dimensions (the album was released at first on one other label) we're in front of real musical quality with nine songs of classic raw Black Metal and extremely dark atmosphere. The good thing here is that we have a feeling of "cosmos"? What does it mean? Well hard to explain but we have some spatial breaks and the general ambiances doesn't sound like something which come from a cemetery but more from outerspace and infinite cosmos. This is pretty cool actually and even if the music is classic, at least the ambiances are originals.

"Ethernal Throne" has a good production which fits pretty well to the album without killing the standards of the genre. The sound is ok but not so clean and the voice of Wulfskrieger is not too "cool" and clean if you see what I mean. The cover artwork is really simple (a simple mountain picture) but it perfectly represents the atmosphere of the album. Well "Ethernal Throne" is a good release actually, the lyrics can be a bit cliché sometime but all in all, it's a good promising debut?
As you know now, I strongly believe in the US Black Metal scene and I think that which such debut album, Battle Dagorath will probably proves to the frozen lands of Europe that they should be careful if they still want to be considerate as the kings of the genre? "Ethernal Throne" is maybe not perfect but it's promising and the fans of true Black Metal should have a look at this release. Something "surprisingly good" will probably come from this band one day. You'll see?