album : March of the Norse
artist : Demonaz
genre : Epic/Black Metal
year : 2011
Once Immortal, forever Immortal.
One of the founding members of a legendary black metal band Immortal, Demonaz Doom Occulta (he wasn’t Demonaz by birth, he was Harald), decides to make similar kind of songs with lyrical influences also not too original but calls the band by his own name. Immortal co-founder Abbath also joins hands and together they form Demonaz. Maybe because they think the world has had enough of Immortal or maybe because we did not enjoy All Shall Fall much. Truth remains that we have always sat through Immortal‘s albums with alert ears even though Abbath could rarely manage his vocals to not sound like Quorthon (Bathory).
Expanding that thought a little more there was another band named I that was formed in 2005 with an almost similar line-up, just that Demonaz only contributed lyrics to their album. Ok, enough of confusion. The crux is all of this began with Immortal in 1990. So, Demonaz and Abbath re-return with battles and mountains keeping their obsession with the north intact.
It had to be a Northern Hymn introducing project Demonaz to us. March of the Norse, as an album, is practically the same story and I am referring to both the bands – Immortal and I – although I find more traces of the latter one more here. I don’t like trying too hard when it comes to my music but here even that did not provide the results that I had set out to obtain. Track after track the only discrete feature is Demonaz‘s screeches and he sings clean pretty well at required places. There are vocals by Abbath too on the record. I’ll remember this album for A Son of the Sword, Under the Great Fires and Legends of Fire and Ice.
Although classified as epic black metal, there ain’t exactly anything epic about this music neither is it as black as you’d expect it to be. Let’s just settle with metal. This is metal like any other metal out there. It might sell because it has Demonaz‘s name but once the listeners have heard it (maybe twice) they’ll return to playing the albums by Immortal, I and then Demonaz. In that same order.
Rating : 2.5/5
