Lothlorien

The Primal Event (Black Mark)
by Martin Popoff

One of four debut albums from Germany’s Black Mark, a label primed in ’99 for the first concerted assault on America in over a year, Lothlorien‘s The Primal Event displays a band smack in the middle of a feeding pit, populated by acts fusing black metal, death metal, and traditional power metal. But lucky for us, these guys are Swedish, so one can expect tons of heavy guitars laden with melody, twin leads smarter than Maiden (see “Sorrowsoul” and “The Other Side”), and well-constructed songs that drip with forlorn metal frost. Vocals are also a Carcass-derived fusion of black and death, but these are tempered by the warm keyboards floating over most tracks. The main texture is one of melodic death, with much more cool twin lead than is usual. Despite the dodgy cover art, pretty cool, although in this field, bigger names get the call.
(120 W. 44th St. #603 New York, NY 10036)