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OE - The Shepherd and the Hounds of Hell

Amy | outer space | 10/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's initially quite shocking that this is the same band that released Soulblight and Witchcraft, which were very classically-leaning symphonic black metal. This is something else entirely. They've abandoned the keyboards, piano, and harpsichords so prominent in the earlier material. There is a lot more clean singing, but thankfully also still a lot of Pest's very raspy screaming. It's a lot more guitar-oriented and thrashy sounding without abandoning the technicality and odd song structures.



Surprisingly, I thought all the clean vocals worked pretty well here, especially on "Scrolls of the Shadowland," which is probably my favorite song on here. Great way to start an album, though there is not a bad song on this. There are just tons of great riffs here, even guitar solos, varying tempo changes, good drumming, it's just completely awesome. I'm glad there are no keyboards on this though, at times the previous two albums seemed like they just had too much going on at once. There times it feels like black metal and times it more closely resembles thrash or even heavy metal. It sure doesn't sound classical or symphonic though.



It's a damned shame the band broke up after this, I just can't get over how consistently good everything they did is. This is some of the best-written music I've heard in a long time."