When I saw this where I bought it I had no idea what to expect. I actually partially picked the CD up because the album cover looked pretty cool. When I listened to it, I was blown away by how good it was. The playing was tight, the lyrics were nothing I heard of before, and the whole ‘feel’ of it was epic and evil at the same time. It was like Satan as the king of a frozen wasteland with an army of hell spawn and this was the battle hymn. The songs were some of the fastest I’ve heard before I got this and finally got to know the genre as black metal. I haven’t looked back since.

This CD not only introduced me to black metal, but had me explore other metal sub-genres. Not only this this a fantastic black metal album, it’s, in my opinion, a musical work of art. It flows well together and has a lot of variety within each song. There’s a sense of melody and cohesion in the playing.

My personal stand out songs are: Soulreaper, Thorns of Crimson Death and Night’s Blood.