Bathory may have cast away the satanic shackles, but on 'Blood...', they vent a black fury like no-one else.This is their 'Reign In Blood', their magnum opus as such, an orgiastic and bombastic record of Nordic myths, a sweeping, tyrannical cauldron of epic proportions, pure Viking metal breathing fire from stormy skies, booming like Heaven's thunder and crackling under the fizzing glow of lightning. This is one noisy record, yet the listener cannot prepare for the din as he is lead through the forest of mist by the haunting introduction being 'Odens Ride Over Nordland' which crashes into the holocaustic 'A Fine Day To Die', a black metal classic if ever there was one.
The landscapes created here are of bloody battles, and harsh horizons, think Venom but far bigger, alot scarier and swaggering through the woods, swords at the ready, all dying in its cursed wake. Quorthon is still on hideous form, his ghastly vocalisations only this time echoing through the zenith like some tortured messiah.
'Dies Irae' does bring back those basement days of evil black metal, but the whole atmosphere created is one of stormy triumph, roaring seas and dew-damp woodlands, only this time the horror is not from some red-eyed demon but instead a greater force.
8.5/10
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