Black Messiah-The Final Journey

AFM
2012

Normally if you asked me if I would rather listen to folk metal or have a brick dropped on my foot I'd say give me a second to get my foot ready. This is because many folk metal/black metal mix bands just sound like someone tossed a bunch of various instruments together, swirled them up fast, mixed in some viking conquering lyrics and then dumped it onto a CD. Fortunately some acts are more talented and take a little pride in their music. Black Messiah have the writing skills and the playing ability to mix folk/black metal/viking metal/power metal together and have it not only work but actually be quite exciting. For once here was a band with battle/war themes where the mood and pace of the music actually matches what they are singing about. In fact many bands could learn a lot about setting the mood from these guys. They can step up the pace to a frenzy as a clash commences and bring it back to a march during a lull in the fighting. Every aspect of this album is strung together with a great deal of skill and precision. Part of me was definitely expecting this album to either be a joke or annoy the crap out me, but instead I came away expecting to be re-visiting this later in 2012 when I compile my best of the year list.