Stormruler are a duo form St. Louis, Missouri that has had music reviewed before in this zine and plays a very raw and melodic form of black metal and this is a review of their 2022 album "Sacred Rites & Black Magick" which was released by Napalm Records.
Acoustic guitars start off the album before going into more of a heavier and melodic musical direction. When the music speeds up a decent amount of tremolo picking and blast beats can be heard which also gives the music more of a raw feeling and all of the musical instruments on the recording also have a very powerful sound to them.
Vocals a re mostly high pitched black metal screams while the songs also add in a decent mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts. When guitar solos and leads are utilized they are also done in a very melodic style along with some of the tracks also being very long and epic in length.
Synths can also be heard at times along with an interlude also being added in between every track and acoustic guitars also return on later tracks as well as a couple of songs also introducing spoken word parts onto the recording. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics are a concept album and cover war, history, black magick and sorcery themes.
In my opinion this is another great sounding album from Stormruler and if you are a fan of raw and melodic black metal, you should check out this recording. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Internal Fulmination Of The Grand Deceivers" "Sacred Rites & Black Magick" "Upon Frozen Shores" and "A Malice Dead & Cold". 8/5 out of 10.
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