By Mark Steele
Vredehammer, hailing from Norway - are a very interesting band, and I'm glad that they became a full time entity. Originally, Vredehammer was formed by Per Valla who had departed from the bands Elite and Allfader as a bit of a side project that became a full time band in 2013 with the Mintaka EP, and the singles 'Cthulhu' and 'We Are The Sacrifice' released this year as a taster for things to come – which has eventually arrived in the form of the Vinteroffer album.
The album starts with the moody opener of 'The Awakening', which is an orchestral track that is reminiscent of a film intro that sets the pace nicely – opening with a machine gun attack drumming and a furious guitar riff, with a nice lead solo floating over the mix, which then enters on into a full black metal assault with 'Cthulhu', a furiously paced number that despite the full on attack never descends into a muddy blur due to some decent mastering – making each of the songs raw, vital, sharp, and icy black.
'Suicide Infect Destroy' starts with out of phase machine gun drumming, before thundering on into a glorious Norse metal attack that is reminiscent of Satyricon's faster paced works, layered with soaring solos that work effectively and adding atmosphere, combined with slower sections that remind me of early Dimmu Borgir before they went crazy with the 'epic film score black metal' stuff and is a very enjoyable track. In fact, it's pretty hard to find fault with any of the tracks on the album as they deliver the goods in spades. Further listens of the album recall bits of other Scandinavian black metal bands such as elements of Enslaved, Keep of Kalessin and also reminds me of Kampfar, thrown into the mix for good measure.
'Suicide Forest' is a particular catchy number, with a pleasing thunderous attack that develops into some very catchy hook laden riffs that is somewhat Dissection-esque in places, While 'Sykdom' is a brilliant barnstormer of a tune that in the latter half breaks into an insanely catchy Amon Amarth and Finntroll styled riff, with similar patterns repeated in the track 'Vinteroffer' that despite clocking in at just over 9 minutes never becomes too long or boring. The album closes with 'Aldmissa', as a short and thunderous closer that sounds as if for some reason is longer than the play duration but leaves the listener wanting more.
At times, the black metal scene can be an elaborate dizzying chasm of bands that is pretty much an entire movement of its own. Vredehammer may be relatively new kids on the black metal block, but with their début album Vinteroffer it can easy hitch a ride on the shoulders of the black metal giants and mix it with the best of them. So far, a serious contender for the black metal release of the year.
