Perfecting their craft for over two decades in existence, United Kingdom’s Written In Torment are back with a vengeance and this time around their signature blend of both epic and melodic black metal recast themselves to bring back the 90’s style of extreme music but with a modernized sound. This record takes the center stage across a 41 minute, six-song manifestation that feels bleak, dark and casting numerous spells to paint a portrait that is filled with traditionalism at it’s finest hour. The music itself is marvelous and a atmosphere so dense and cinematic that you get some unique symphonic black metal keyboard layers, beautiful acoustic guitars and vocals full of emotional wonders that your spine will be shivered from top to bottom.
The tracks are separate entities as you really feel a sense of depravity, anger and sadness within the album’s majestic production to give them fuel and fire to bring such natural lifelike arrangements. Just the opening moments of Dies Irae, Anger Road and Mors Ultima not only you’ll get the black metal styled screams and crisp singing arrangements but the guitars, drums and keyboard layers are violently explosive with these signatures bringing out a loud, abrasive and noisier type of atmosphere but the passages into combining melodic black metal stylings and symphonic counterparts to the mix adds a different approach to provide the listener a insane, twisted and thematic universe into the album’s canvas. Written In Torment not only have successfully crafted their most experimental and productive albums to date but this is also one of 2022’s standout records for melodic black metal and Purity Through Fire in general.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
