Band:	Immortal
Album:	Northern Chaos Gods
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	July 06, 2018
A review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

01. Northern Chaos Gods
02. Into Battle Ride
03. Gates To Blashyrkh
04. Grim And Dark
05. Called To Ice
06. Where Mountains Rise
07. Blacker Of Worlds
08. Mighty Ravendark

Immortal have suffered for too long in the dreary melodrama of legal scrutiny. All Shall Fall was nine years ago already, and it was 21 years ago that Demonaz made his last appearance on an Immortal album. Abbath, amidst storms of public upset, returned to the music world in 2016 with a tumultuous dud. Northern Chaos Gods might just be the album Immortal needs at this moment.

Understandably, Northern Chaos Gods reflects Immortal's earliest work, the original albums on which Demonaz played guitar and had a heavier hand in the composition. Heavy chugging and melodic leads recall the thickset, death metal-oriented songwriting of the band's later albums, while passages like the end of "Gates Of Blashyrkh" and intro to "Blacker Of Worlds" have a vaguely epic mentality a la Bathory's quoting of Manowar, but among flurries of blastbeats, minor-key riffs distorted into chainsaw grinding, and hoarse, mid-to-upper-range rasping, there can be no mistaking the sound of a black metal titan getting back into its groove. It's wonderful to hear Demonaz back in full shredding form, his 2014 operation apparently having done the trick. He makes a respectable debut as Immortal's lead vocalist, too, wisely eschewing Abbath's ribbiting style for a more conventional snarl that, if less unique, still suits the band's sound.

In most respects, Northern Chaos Gods is a standard, albeit solid, second-wave black metal album. Immortal's grimmest and darkest compositions remain entrenched in past albums like At The Heart Of Winter, and in spite of certain gripping moments it might be many listens more before I'm prepared to single out any part of Northern Chaos Gods as a highlight within Immortal's discography. While this album likely will not impress many outsiders or even some fans who feel deserving of a masterpiece after nearly a decade, I think it means something for Immortal to come back from their turmoil with an album that showcases their inherent strength and understanding of the black metal genre. Especially after the flat production, uneven songwriting, and dispassionate performances that plagued Abbath's self-titled debut, hearing Demonaz and Horgh bounce back with a vital, competent effort like this one is a real relief; if it is indeed true that Abbath took Immortal's new songs with him when he split and this forced Demonaz and Horgh to start from scratch, I think they ultimately got the better deal, as shortsighted as that might be to say, because these songs are so much grimmer, blacker, and full of despair than those that found their way to Abbath.

Peter Tägtgren guided the production with a very even hand. Northern Chaos Gods bathes in the lawless aural frenzy that defines classic black metal, allowing the sound to match the fury of the songwriting and performances, but the album does not descend into the pure walls of noise that Battles In The North or Pure Holocaust were prone to. This album is more measured, opting for a tighter and clearer sound that produces a heavier feeling amidst the minimal control, though it stops short of the polish of Sons Of Northern Darkness and All Shall Fall. Crisp and cutting riffs in "Gates To Blashyrkh" and "Grim And Dark" get their due, but we still hear those noisy, atonal walls of distortion that really project the wintry image this style subsists on.

Northern Chaos Gods may not be the most diverse or awe-inspiring black metal album, it may not tread any new ground for Immortal, but after all this time and all these struggles I think what we needed was solid evidence that this band can still hack it as one of the kvltest, frostiest, blacker-than-the-blackest-black-times-infinity-est bands ever to descend from the mountain, and that's what we got in the form of this album.