New Gotia
8/10
Asgaroth have composed an awesomely magnificient album. This Catalan band so far had only released a MCD (titled “The Quest For Eldenhor”) and wasn’t very renowed, but this new album will bring them to the summit of black metal. Their music is full of melodies yet intense and fast, with fantastic instrumental parts and militar drummings and with a massive use of synths and keyboards. The album starts with a frightening, threating intro called “Cry The Way We Greet Our Fates” that leaves way to their nordic-styled black metal, plenty of Emperor, Arcturus influences. All songs are little jewels such as “The Dark Force” (that could perfectly fit in Satyricon’s “The Shadowthrone”), “Omens (Presagios)”, “Last Battle (Tower Of Doom)” (which appeared in their MCD), “The Choirs Of The Elemental Deities” (with that heavymetalloid guitar riff), “Lost In Natura” or “Prelude In Dusk”, the latter serving as preparation for the best song of the album, the excellent, superb, grandiose “Placious Echoes At Darkwoods You Greet… Silvering Moon Between My Shadows”. If you ignore the senseless songtitles, “Trapped…” could become one of the best albums of the year in the black metal scene worldwide.