Dodsvisioner

Kerrang (Magazine) (p.47) - "[C]avernous odysseys of despair, rich with downbeat atmospherics...[and] passages of sorrowful bucolic dreaminess."

Some horror movie buffs would agree that the best movies of the genre are the slow-building ones -- not merely a string of grisly splatter scenes strung together from beginning to end. And some would say the same about death metal/black metal -- variation and slow-building beginnings are better than front-to-back riffing at 100 miles per hour. The Swedish band Bergraven obviously agree with this approach, as 2007's Dodsvisioner is not your average death metal fest -- heck, the first song, "Doende," begins with glacier-paced sound effects, as the track doesn't kick in until nearly three minutes in. Also, Bergraven keep the tempos moderately paced (an oddity in the oft-blazingly fast death metal genre), which only adds to the creepiness of such tracks as "Ondkall" and "Den Svarta Angstens Essens." Dodsvisioner is absolute proof that the death metal/black metal genre is still alive (or rather, undead) and well -- and that there is still ground to be broken in a genre that appeared to be taken to its limit a long time ago. ~ Greg Prato