Last May, metal powerhouse Century Media Records signed New Hampshire’s Vattnet Viskar on the combined strength of the band’s 3-song 2012 debut EP, released via micro-indie Broken Limbs Recordings, and their live show. Both these presentations were startlingly powerful and assured, belying the band’s relative youth. Both also, though, suggested tremendous untapped upside. It was an unexpected left turn from the label home of trad heavyweights like Deicide, Napalm Death, and Watain, but a welcome (and wise) one: Vattnet Viskar were seemingly born with fully formed big-league tools, yet their nuanced and bold approach to heavy music made them feel like a band ready to blaze trails, kick down doors. This past September, the band released their first full-length album, Sky Swallower, which provided an immediate reward (artistically, anyway) on Century Media’s investment. Vattnet Viskar are nominally a black metal band, but that appellation captures only a fraction of their sound’s massive scope. In many ways, they recall two great (and similarly undefinable) NYC bands: Krallice and Tombs. Sky Swallower is an album of athletic power and grace. When it is quiet, it is patient, placid, near-still; when it is heavy, it is as breathtaking as a skyscraper demolition. And the band’s use of balance and tension to maximize the effects of those extremes is dazzling; it’s a visceral experience. –Michael [LISTEN