Immortal - Blizzard Beasts (1997)

Immortal's fourth full-length, 'Blizzard Beasts' has always felt like the black sheep of their discography. It's not that its bad, because none of Immortal's records are, but I think it has more to do with the fact that it followed the undeniable masterpiece that was, 'Battles in the North' and it came prior to the more cleanly produced, melodic and death metal influenced, 'At the Heart of Winter,' which is also seen as a classic by most. Its also the last album to feature guitarist Demonaz as well its the first to feature drummer Horgh. Nevertheless, 'Blizzard Beasts' is a pretty damn good record.

While the album does tend to lack the stomping compositional excellence and frigid snowstorm aura of its predecessor it makes up for that with a bit more style and diversity. Running at just twenty eight minutes Immortal crams a lot into these nine songs; crunchier death-ish metal riffs played in a tremolo style, quick but massive solos and icy rich bridges in each song, as well Abbath's froggy grim voice leads the attack and occasionally some acoustics and keyboards are used too. Some songs hit hard and knock you out cold with their sheer force and power (Blizzard Beasts, Noctambulant and Frostdemonstorm), while others are just simply cold and a bit more diverse in their delivery and in the case of, 'Mountains Of Might' you've got one of the most epic Immortal tracks out there exploding out of your stereo.

Personally I own the original Osmose pressing and at least on this version the overall volume is lower than you'd want it to be plus the production is a bit more on the muddier side. While I do realize its black metal to me it always felt like this brand of it strived more so with loud and dynamic studio engineering, which it doesn't and that fact may be another reason why this one is overlooked.

As I said earlier this album is sort of in a gap between the new and the old and as such it seems forgotten, which is too bad since its a great offering of speedy and occasionally diverse blasting black metal.