DARK FUNERAL We Are The Apocalypse | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by Century Media Records on March 18th, 2022

Quick Background

Swedish black metal pioneers Dark Funeral released their fist album The Secrets of the Black Arts in 1996 as part of the second wave of the black metal movement. Lord Ahriman, is the primary guitarist, songwriter and sole founding member of the band.  Dark Funeral 's previous album, 2016's Where Shadows Forever Reign, was the band's first release to feature vocalist Heljarmadr, whose snarl found a perfect match alongside Lord Ahriman's trademark riffing. Their lyrical themes have traditionally pertained to Satanism and anti-Christianity. While I know the band, I'm not very familiar with their discography, so it will be a review without bias or comparisons to previous works. 

We Are The Apocalypse

We Are The Apocalypse is therefore Dark Funeral 's seventh studio album and features nine straightforward black metal songs in 44 minutes. All tracks are between 4 and 6 minutes. And I want to stars with track number 4 actually because "Nosferatu" kind of summarizes the album for me. While it is a more dynamic song where different singing styles are used, it also fuses the ferocity with groove.

That's how I see We Are The Apocalypse. Some songs will please more traditional Black Metal fans as they are 

 super fast with tremolo guitars and blast beats. The voracious "When Our Vengeance Is Done" and "Beyond the Grave" are two great examples.  The single "Let the Devil In", featuring a fantastic drum intro, is very interesting song. The video is also quite artistic and disturbing. The song is groovier and slower tempo which creates a great contrast with "Nightfall". This song is a good opener: high tempo, blistering drums, tremolo fast picking, Heljarmadr's powerful snarl that is both aggressive and understandable and surprisingly catchy at the same time. Other and most of the other songs are somewhere in between. "When I'm Gone" with almost 6 min is the longest song on the album. It's also the slowest and most melancholic one. Super groovy drums and melodic. The title track closes the album with full blast Black Metal and high energy. 

To top it all, I love that album cover, it reminds of the previous album due to the blue tonality, but still it's beautifully dark. 

The Picky Guy

What I liked the most album this album is how heavy and Black Metal it sounds but it's also groovy and dynamic. So the super fast songs were a little bit less interesting, but by no means bad. The only one thing that bothered me was some "bleah" screams here and there. I mean, why bring metalcore annoyance into Black Metal? As always, probably it's just my taste.  

Wrap Up Opinion 

I came to this album with no expectations and I am now surprised how much I enjoyed it. It's nothing new or innovative, but it's damn good straightforward black metal with that black and roll flavor at times. But most importantly, for a Black Metal album is really dynamic with variability and not just tremolo picking guitars and blast beats. It's well written, performed and produced. In sum a very good 83/100 black metal album.

SCORE: 83/100

Genre: Black Metal

Released by Century Media Records on March 18th, 2022

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

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