vote
7.0
- Band:
Mara (Se) - Duration: 00:35:23
- Available from: 06/27/2025
- Label:
-
Immortal Frost Productions
Streaming not yet available
Fifth album for the Swedes Mara – after “Loka Maer” of 2022 – and third album on Immortal Frost, a Belgian label in great dusting that recently produced Psychonaut 4, Atra Vetosus, Cryfemal and reprinted our Frostmoon Eclipse. “Sword of Vengeance” presents itself as an easy album easy to decipher, but much more difficult to assimilate. The thirty -five minutes that make it up are all oriented towards a single solution: a violent and rather epic Norwegian Black Metal Raw, which can remember the kampfars of the first period (with some hints of clean voice included).
By violently we mean that the sustained times are a predominant part of the album, which rarely stops to give breath to the listener with perhaps more reasoned and a little atmospheric episodes. “Primordial Son” and “Nidingr” are proof of this: excluding the intro, we are faced with two very fired songs in full nineties style, which on more than a moment seem to aim for real paroxysm, in terms of speed. On such a musical fabric the voice of Vindsval mounts, which is, in its own way, perhaps the most particular element of all, given that it is a real scream that could work – paradoxically – also on a grindcore base.
Instead, it is the typically Norwegian guitars and the insistence on clear and epic leads (hence the comparison with the kampfar) who keep the Mara firmly in the soil of old school black metal. Another element to certainly take into consideration is the production, very rough and sometimes even a little dissonant, to the point of seeming, thinking about today's standards, without a real mix and mastering. We repeat 'seem', given that Seiðr (already a musician behind the interesting Seid) is declared in the control room). Overall, therefore, the Mara seem very little Swedish and are positioned closer to a Black Metal feeling of overseas, towards Oslo or Bergen or, why not, Trondheim.
The third “Elite”, introduced by a sampling of voice, resumes what has been said once again as a true bullet in the face. It takes the fourth “Lokabrenna” to obtain the first structurally different piece, which slows down – at least a little in some parts – the time to support with a very interesting double cassal carpet. We are halfway through the disc: everything else continues roughly on the rough and adrenaline bordered; Here we have to mention “Elivagar”, the only real midtempo, at least for almost half a song.
Overall, therefore, we are faced with a product practically always loaded to a thousand, even if in its way every now and then try to be a little more particular: if the speed and the fury may not be a problem for those who follow a certain type of black metal, what could stop some listener is instead the voice, all in all not usual. For our part we consider this “Sword of Vengeance”, the fifth chapter of the Mara saga.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
