Installing melody into your black metal is far from an original concept and hasn’t been for decades now, but there are some bands that can mix it all too well with their brand of ferocity to make for a concoction that’s beyond delicious every time. It was Belzebubs that delivered probably the most noteworthy case of such last year for me and it had been some time since I was impressed on such a level for the style, and it didn’t take long to follow up that release that Blaze of Perdition return to us with an album that’s just as deadly as it is infectious.

Of all the bands that I was expecting to give me the first surprise from black metal this year, Blaze of Perdition was nowhere on the list if I’m to be completely honest. But, if anything, that makes “The Harrowing of Hearts” all the more special in my eyes because of how much of a surprise it is in just about every form from as a work that just happened to cross my radar to a quality that I wouldn’t expect from Blaze of Perdition in general as a band. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against this band, but it’s here with “The Harrowing of Hearts” that I find myself really taken aback at the contents of this record in such a way that I was not expecting in the slightest, and I still can’t get enough of it even after listening to it for hours on end. With so much melody but just as much intensity being thrown around, there isn’t a single track strewn throughout this record that doesn’t exude awesomeness as well as power. Blaze of Perdition could’ve easily gone down the middle of the road of this work, but they nailed everything that they poured into “The Harrowing of Hearts” with no stone left unturned as they have crafted something truly worth listening to here. Just as often as it can become, “The Harrowing of Hearts” can easily shift into something almost completely foreign to the album at that point that adds so much more intrigue to the mix and shows us the capability of Blaze of Perdition to an even higher degree. The whole of this piece is constantly on the move with this band never settling for the same tone or rhythm for more than a few strategic minutes before morphing into something else entirely that can take you completely off guard or play into your expectations with phenomenal results, and, either way, I can guarantee that you’ll be coming out of “The Harrowing of Hearts” with nothing to say except “holy fuck”!

It likely wouldn’t have been until the next album from Ende that I was expecting the first impressive work of black metal that I had on my radar, but Blaze of Perdition tore open that plan with just a few songs here that absolutely devastates anything that I had in mind beforehand. “The Harrowing of Hearts” is a tremendous work of many forms, and it’s upon its release that I truly can’t encourage you enough to check out for it has got loads of substance and glory behind it that not giving the album its proper due would be simply cruel.

“The Harrowing of Hearts” releases on February 14th via Metal Blade Records!

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “The Harrowing of Hearts” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Blaze of Perdition on Facebook here.