Release: 31-05-2010
Label: Whirlwind Records

By Laetitia

Slechtvalk, a Dutch black/viking metalband recently released their fourth full length album, called ‘A Forlorn Throne’. There are guestvocals by Erik Grawsiö from Månegarm on the album. His role is not outstanding, and so if you want to hear him you should listen closely. That’s a pity because his voice is always nice to listen to, it would have been nicer if his role was bigger.

The first song, ‘Tamers of the sea’, kicks off very melodic black metal like. It’s a nice song, rythmic and diverse. Something else that you notice immediatly is that the production of this album was in good hands, the quality is very good. The second song ‘Forsaken’ is more powerful in vocals, the alternation between grunts and clean vocals sound very good in this song. ‘Desolte’ isn’t that much different, it’s black metal like, diverse and powerful. Now it’s time for the fourth song on the album called ‘Divided by malice’. It starts out very different from the first three songs, it starts calm, with clean vocals. It stays like this for only a minute when all the calmness gets interrupted by a scream and music. It’s the most calm song on the album, but definatly not boring! Probably one of my personal favorites.

‘Allegiance’, is a remarkable song with a lot of different melodies in it, which sound good, it’s a pleasure for the ears. ‘Enthroned’ has a little bit of Amon Amarth – feeling to it, because of the vocals and the guitar melodies, though heavier. After a short intermezzo, the Amon Amarthness of the song fades away. ‘Bewailed’ and ‘Towards the dawn’ stay in the same line as the other songs on the album. It’s time for the last song on the album ‘Vengeance of a scorned King.’ This song has all the elements I’ve named before, fast, diverse, nice sounding vocals and finally recognizable some screams of Erik Grawsiö. The song is definatly a good closure for the album.

So is ‘A Forlorn Throne’ nothing but awesome and great? Well I can name one thing, it’s not the most original, but that is not something that will irritate, because you will be to busy enjoying the album. ‘A Forlorn Throne’ doesn’t dissapoint a bit and certainly lives up to my expectations. I’m pretty sure that this will be one of the best cd-releases of 2010 in the black/viking metalscene.

Rating: 8/10
Tracklist:

01. Tamers of the Seas
02. Forsaken
03. Desolate
04. Divided By Malice
05. Allegiance
06. Enthroned
07. Bewailed
08. Towards The Dawn
09. Vengeance Of A Scorned King

Links
Slechtvalk Official
Myspace