Review Summary: Old Man's Child bring together the best of both worlds in The Pagan Prosperity. Combining the raw feel of old BM with equally great melodies, this is their strongest album to date.
Black metal really is a tricky thing to master. Staying with a primitive style will keep your diehard fans, but is often looked at negatively by those not accustomed to the genre. Branching out of the confines of the raw black metal style can bring you to new heights, but will often cause you to be labeled as a sell-out or poseur. There is a fine balance in branching out from raw black metal and combining melodies and even synth work, yet still staying true to your roots. While Old Man’s Child these days is often seen as a “mainstream” black metal band, their older albums were still raw enough to keep their first fans hooked. This album is a great combination of melody and brutality, and what I think to be Old Man’s Child’s strongest album to date.
The Pagan Prosperity has all of the components of their past album, Born of the Flickering. The semi-crappy production, the extremely grating throat vocals, the melodic guitar riffs, you name it. It’s all there. Only this time, it’s been refined and amplified to a higher level. Old Man’s Child’s principal member, Galder, has really stepped up his game in terms of songwriting, creating some heavy guitar parts and balancing them with ear-catching melodies to bring together a great mix. “My Demonic Figures” is a great example of this. The intro consists of tremolo-picked black metal riffs, quickly followed by some incredibly catchy drumming and melodic bass and guitar exchanges at around thirty six seconds in. Galder’s extremely dark and twisted vocals then enter, creating a great track, and one of the band’s best songs of all time. The synth work, guitars and vocals of Galder are all phenomenal on this album, as they are filled with countless catchy melodies and great harmonizing.
Another notable thing about this album is that the rhythm section is really brought out. This is far different from some original black metal artists. I believe it was Fenriz from Darkthrone who said that black metal is heavily centered around guitar riffs and that drums were “only supposed to be there”. This band apparently didn’t listen to that at all, as there is an abundance of varied drum beats and groove styles. There are many instances throughout where the drumming will make your head bob up and down even. While this may seem to go against what black metal is all about, it certainly works. It’s cool how these guys can incorporate multiple styles and influences, yet still going back to their roots. The bass playing is also to be comended, as it is brought out in many occasions. The bass is always thick in the mix like in songs such as “Doommaker” and “My Kingdom Will Come”. It adds additional harmonies to the guitar work which creates an even larger sound. It’s something that I think tons of bands should try and do these days, as the bass is usually brought back way too far in the mix.
To bring things to a close, this album is something that any extreme metal fan should invest in. It’s one of the bands least known albums, but I think that it is their crowning achievement. Galder brings the black metal world a great balance of melodic guitar work of newer BM bands, yet still staying to true to their original roots of bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone. The rhythm section is phenomenal, always coming up with creative stuff that greatly adds something to the sound, something that most black metal bands rarely do. Also, if you’re a fan of early Dissection and Emperor, check this out. I highly suggest this album to you, as it is one of my favorite albums in the genre.
Just a couple highlights:
Soul Possessed
My Demonic Figures
Return of the Night Creatures
What Malice Embrace
Final Rating: 4.2/5 – Thor strongly suggests this album
