Old Man’s Child

Vermin (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

With Galder officially one of black metal’s big shots, given his Dimmu-ship as well as a multitude of Old Man’s Children, somehow the reticent black star rising finds time to boil and toil another swirling cauldron of black metal foodstuffs. For Vermin, Galder plays all the instruments except drums, and, as usual, what one gets is a high fidelity cavalcade of sounds panoramic, epic, and eerily melodic, as evidenced by opener “Enslaved and Condemned” which balances a vicious set of opening sequences with a gorgeous, sin-draped melody introduced later. “War of Fidelity” is also a shining highlight, its almost power metal-ish thrash recalling the magic of Immortal before meltdown. And, really, what you have here is the last best black metal band standing, at least beyond the theatrics of Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth, Old Man’s Child raging with a heart of pure but earthy metal (check out the opening to “In Torment’s Orbit”) despite the well-dovetailed orchestrations. And smartly, Galder enlists a top-notch drummer, Reno Killerich (ex-Dimmu), arriving with complex ideas to add to Galder’s uneasily warm and quiet and alone and underground mindscapes. Very Gothic, complicated but more with respect to arrangement than speed, Vermin is a seductively listenable (and short) record of top drawer black metal.
(www.centurymedia.com)