Imperium Dekadenz – Meadows Of Nostalgia (Season Of Mist)

Imperium Dekadenz – Meadows Of Nostalgia (Season Of Mist)

In all seriousness, friends: I know it’s tempting to pass this over once you see the album cover. Stopping to imagine an actual meadow of nostalgia doesn’t help, but we can probably write that off as a foible of ESL. Hear me out. Imperium Dekadenz specialize in gorgeous, widescreen grandeur — playing epic black metal by way of Disintegration. Yet it’s as if every element of their presentation is designed to downplay their actual sound, which is nothing short of huge: guitars arc and soar across a landscape of emotion, and the powerfully clear production could level a mountain or two. Melodic riffs and drawn out song structures allude to depressive black metal, a style more often played in bedrooms and drowned in cassette hiss, but Meadows sounds monumental thanks to a pristine mix and some surprisingly tasteful guitar heroics. Imagine Immortal playing a tearjerker with a straight face. It’s funny to think how far black metal has come since its inception — despite the presence of loud guitars, there’s nothing truly raw here besides the abraded vocals. Instead we get a thing of beauty played at maximum volume, to maximum effect. (And they went and named it Meadows Of Nostalgia!) –Aaron [LISTEN]