Review Summary: Although it is not completely Kvlt, Far away from the sun is a very impressive, and evil melodic black metal album.
Although this swedish black metal band lived in the shadow of dissection's success, Sacramentum is a highly notable band. Their debut. Far away From The Sun is definitely the best, and blackest of their three full length albums. This CD is full of catchy melodies, fast and evil verses, and beautiful harmonies. Even though it has it's shortcomings in various areas, this is one album that any black metal, or melodic death metal fan should check out.
+ The Good
The guitar work, and vocals of Sacramentum are definitely the strong points on this album. Anders Brolycke is an incredible musician, and writes very catchy and dark melodies. The guitar riffs are almost constantly tremolo picked, which gives very little rhythmic diversity, and avoids slow and boring parts. Nisse Karlen's vocals are evil, and cold. His voice adds a very dark atmosphere to the music, which was lacking in many melodic black metal bands such as dissection, and dark funeral.
- The Bad
The drums, and bass are not nearly as impressive as the guitar, and vocals. The drumming is far from being as fast, and flashy as Horgh, Hellhammer, or the original drummer for dissection, and although there is lots of rhythmic diversity in the drums, which is rare in black metal, most of the drum tracks sound the same. The bass is almost completely inaudible, and when you turn the bass up all the way, and tune out the treble the bass is far from amazing. And although this isn't completely awful, Far away from the sun sounds way too much like Dissection.
My favorite songs on this album were Far Away From The Sun, Obsolete tears, and Fog's Kiss. These songs were the darkest, fastest, and catchiest songs. The guitars show an incredible amount of technique for a black metal band on these songs. The drums switch between lightning fast blast beats, and groovy rhythms. The vocals, as always are good on these songs, but are made even better against the memorable guitar melodies.
