Primitive yet magnifique – Review of Satanic Warmaster’s “Aamongandr”

Facing a work by Satanic Warmaster means plunging into the primitive chaos of cruelty. Despite this, few personalities like Werwolf are able to combine the rough and chipped stone of pure black metal with the melodious lines typical of the Finnish tradition. Praise the thunder and the vampire queen: it’s time to summon the night with “Aamongandr”.

The opening track “Bafomet” anticipates a polished album, perhaps clearer in the sounds than the previous works. The score varies between melodic falls and rises. Werwolf cuts the structure like the sharp winter breeze and drags canonical lyrics of creative blasphemy. A piece with a cinematic bent, and Carelian grandeur that never lets you down.

Sing to me vampire queen, a canticle of violent winds

That spin in darkness beyond dream and existence

As my silver eggs fester onto your ravenous lips

(a nexion of flesh and darkness crystallizes)

– From the 1st track “Bafomet”

“Duke’s Ride” (Ride Of The Spectral Hooves) has an easily recognizable cadence, almost catchy by the standards of a black metal that wants to stay on the line of mystery and ferocity. It is a very refined piece, with different gradations of rhythm, and a pleasant break of atmosphere, which strongly collaborates with the story-oriented core that Werwolf has always tried to keep intact. The final run is amazing. Your body as a listener is completely enthralled by it. One of those songs that penetrates the bones and muscles.

Arriving at “Berserk Death” we realize that “Aamongandr” is not only an album in which the musical parts enjoy a certain clarity. We are dealing with an opus that offers a strong variety. Compared to the previous ones, “Berserk Death” is classicism, a well-executed black metal interval that avoids being redundant. “The Eye of Satan” follows with a burst of energy that slowly drifts into melancholy modulation. Moment of great interest: the song proceeds on two levels: on the one hand the pressing call of Werwolf, on the other a bass base that tends towards decadence.

Closes “Aamongandr” the couple “Darkness… Triumphator” and “Barbas x Aamos” – two songs, in my opinion, that are spectacular. The first continues on the traditional line of Scandinavian black sonorities, with a Norwegian taste, the second amplifies the structure and inserts those narrative variations, those rhombuses, and those sudden riffs of great compositional complexity.

In the end, “Aamongandr” reconfirms Satanic Warmaster as a symbol of a black metal that does not age and that knows how to resurrect from his traditions. Under the spell of a necromancer. Our Werwolf in this case.

Satanic Warmaster‘s “Aamongandr” will be released on 30 December 2022 via Werewolf Records, as part of the totally independent path of Werwolf.

“Aamongandr” is made of six tracks:

1. Bafomet (5:28)
2. Duke’s Ride (Ride of the Spectral Hooves) (6:29)
3. Berserk Death (5:09)
4. The Eye of Satan (5:00)
5. Darkness… Triumphator (6:58)
6. Barbas X Aamon (7:49)