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Throne of Katarsis: An Eternal Dark Horizon
 An Eternal Dark Horizon is the debut full length release by the Norwegian black metal duo known as Throne of Katarsis. The premise here is to offer a disc full of true Norwegian black metal harkening back to the glory days of the genre or more specifically the early 90's. Unfortunately though An Eternal Dark Horizon doesn't back up these claims and ultimately fails to deliver the goods for a few reasons. While there is a profusion of blast beat drumming and the rhythm section is quite solid overall, the problem is the vocals and guitar work are nothing more than average. When you couple that with the fact that all the songs run in the 9-12 minute range, it doesn't take very long before things start to get rather mind-numbing and tedious. There are a few brief acoustic interludes thrown in for a bit of added atmosphere, however the vibe overall on this disc just feels as if everything is forced. I'll pass on this one.
Track Listing
1) Funeral Moonlight
2) Under Guds Hud
3) Symbols of Winter
4) Nattaander
5) An Eternal Dark Horizon
Added: July 11th 2007
Reviewer: Ryan Sparks
Score: 
Related Link: Candlelight Records
Hits: 2250
Language: english
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Throne of Katarsis: An Eternal Dark Horizon
Posted by Pete Pardo, SoT Staff Writer on 2007-07-11 15:20:34
My Score:
On the surface, Throne of Katarsis' An Eternal Dark Horizon looks like many of the chiche riden black metal releases you see pop up each month (although the sort of neat corpse painted & spiked fiends brandishing flaming torches and scythes hits the evil cool factor), but once you get to the music, this is actually pretty solid old school styled Norwegian black metal, long on epic songs, gymnastic guitar arrangements, relentless rhythms, blood curdling vocal shrieks, and even some interesting acoustic & atmospheric interludes. While some elements of early Mayhem, Darkthrone, Immortal, Satyricon, Ulver, and Enslaved do pop up, these guys are trying hard to push forward their own style while still showing their early 90's black metal influences. Gotta love the the extended, epic arrangements of tunes like "Funeral Moonlight" and "Symbols of Winter" (well, each piece on the CD passes the 9-minute mark), which rarely drag one bit, as the band throws in lots of raging yet melodic tremelo picked guitar riffs, frequently changing speeds and tempos. One of the best tunes on the CD is the excellent "Nattaander", a mind-blowing behemoth with some seriously delicious and evil guitar work to go along with some savage vocals. The production is harsh yet very powerful, but I would have liked the guitars to be higher in the mix and the vocals a little lower.
As typical of many BM releases, don't expect to be able to read any of the lyrics in the CD booklet, as it's in a font that is practically illegible. Not that you can understand any of the vocals either, but as far as growling goes they are well done and fit the music just fine, although a little variety might help on future releases. All in all, a very enjoyable black metal release from a band (2 guys from the looks of it) that should have a bright future ahead of them. Plenty brutal, but chocked with just enough melody and atmosphere to keep it interesting.
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