Customer Reviews

Mare Nostrum

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Mare Nostrum is the fourth full-length album from Italian black metal band Stormlord. This band has taken some interesting turns since their early, straightforward death metal days, and Mare Nostrum is probably their most diverse offering yet, combining a variety of extreme music elements into one very interesting conceptual whole.

Dimmu Borgir's brand of epic symphonic black metal seems to be the main style on this album. The symphonic elements, especially on the title track, are deceptively tranquil, which only serves to accentuate the barely controlled fury of this album. Listen to the blastbeats and screaming/growling vocals on the song Emet and it's easy to imagine this utterly furious monster held back by the thinnest of (symphonic) chains. It's the kind of pure glorious malevolence that makes black metal so compelling. Then there are songs like Neon Karma, with its insanely melodic guitar hooks that come straight from the Children of Bodom playbook, and the Castaway, with a clean/death vocal interplay that brings to mind Borknagar and Vintersorg. The songs and styles all coalesce into one very cohesive, very fierce overall album.

Mare Nostrum is a very well executed example of all that is great about extreme metal. Fans of Dimmu Borgir, Children of Bodom, Borknagar and similar bands should find a lot to like about Stormlord's latest, and most impressive, offering.

Stormlord has quickly became my second favorite Symphonic Black Metal band of all-time (first being Carach Angren). At first, I was very reluctant on giving them a try due to the very corny name they have, but within the first minute of the CD I was engulfed in a musical trance. Listening to Mare Nostrum feels like sensory impalement of diversity. It would be very easy to put this CD on your mp3 player, close your eyes, and forget were you are.