Send "Immortal " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Unlike their 1990s Norwegian black metal colleagues, Immortal aren't glamorous. The band mostly avoided the church burnings and murders that made black metal notorious-- its core of vocalist/guitarist Abbath, drummer Horgh, and lyricist/ex-guitarist Demonaz has remained squeaky clean. They're not Satanists; they're inspired by Norway's wintry landscapes. Their lyrics often describe a fantasy world called Blashyrkh. For evidence of the band's un-hipness, do a Google Images search for "Immortal." You'll see some of the silliest band photos ever taken. Essentially, Immortal took KISS' white-faced shtick to risible extremes. The band is the butt of jokes inside and outside of metal.Its music isn't, however. Out of the "second wave" of black metal (the "first wave" consisted of proto-black metal like Venom, Bathory, and Hellhammer), Immortal's music has held up the strongest. Darkthrone and Ulver don't play black metal anymore. Enslaved and Satyricon moved towards prog rock and rock'n'roll, respectively. Mayhem and Gorgoroth have suffered from inconsistent lineups leading to inconsistent music. Immortal's core members, on the other hand, have perfected a singular sound. Their debut, 1992's Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, was a glorious, lo-fi blur. But the band's sound gradually sharpened. The drumming became more linear and precise. The guitars grew faster and more focused. Eventually, the band became an interesting combination of opposites. Its streams of blastbeats were hypnotic, yet Abbath's riffs were grand and melodic, referencing thrash and traditional metal. He sang about big things-- war, winds, and winter-- in a lovable, Popeye-esque croak. While the band's makeup came from black metal, its music had none of the genre's blasphemy or misanthropy....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| When one first listens to All Shall Fall for the first time, it strikes uncanny resemblances to Immortal’s previous full-length album Sons Of Northern Darkness. So it seems that over the course of seven years since Sons… was released that our friends Abbath and Horgh haven’t really progressed at all, instead going for a sound which all of their fans are comfortable with, a sound which really hasn’t changed at all since their most famous album Pure Holocaust. While the songwriting hasn’t progressed, it has been tightened up and cleaned around the edges. The melodies feel more epic, the drums are produced with a heavier low-end, the lyrics are even more grim and frostbitten, and Immortal is still, well, the same old goofy Immortal. If you have heard 2002’s Sons Of Northern Darkness, than you have already heard All Shall Fall. The formula of success for Immortal once again shines through with lengthy, similar-sounding tracks which embrace some of the clichés of the genre while casting others aside. Overall, the production of the album is solid as a rock, every instrument (including bass) is clearly audible at all times, which is a welcome relief from the tendency for black metal bands nowadays to bring progression to a halt in favor of the same raw, intentionally under produced sound of the early 1990’s. The theatrics of Abbath and Horgh are also back with the addition of bassist Apollyon, this time not in the form of an embarrassing album cover featuring the band in awkward poses, but in the familiar pretentious song titles and lyrics which convey all that is black metal (namely winter, the north, and battles long ago)....full text |
Immortal lyrics
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