In Hoc Signo Vinces   (Black Atakk)

 This is the debut album of this Swedish band, and they play… YES! Black Metal in the finest tradition of  Marduk, it starts with a strange intro “One Man Deathsquad”, a mix between some movie sample and some dark noisy sounds, pretty nice, the comes the artillery with heavy sounding riffing, that makes an impenetrable wall of black noise, but are pretty legible and sometimes a little melodic (more than Marduk at least), with excellent guitar lines that stand out from the rest of the sounds, the drums are pure blast beats at full speed, the drumming reminds me a little the drumming in the Ancient Rites classic debut album “The Diabolical Serenades” but this time with real drums, the voices are devilish shrieks using a mid tone very well, the album has a good production, you can easily distinguish every sound of this black piece of art. The album exceeds the half hour, no song reaches more than 5 minutes, and this improves the variety of the album. Though there’s nothing really original here, but this band shows some great quality, this guys knows how to compose Black Metal in the finest way. If you like bands like Marduk, Setherial and Naglfar you will certainly like ANGST as well. (AP)