Rockfreaks.net

Sonic Reign

Raw Dark Pure

Written by: PP on 30/05/2007 12:46:25

Germany's Sonic Reign has enjoyed a decent amount of success in their homeland with their debut album "Raw Dark Pure" that was originally self-releasd last year, before catching the attention of Metal Blade's international distribution machine. The label simply loved the album so much that they wanted to re-release it immediately and make it available all across the continent, which is why I am sitting here today writing this review.

Staying true to their name, Sonic Reign brings forth a thick wall of layered guitars and wicked, deep shrieks. The band mostly stays within the moden black/death metal boundaries but occasionally also tread into Slayer-esque thrash metal riffs, though without sacrificing the immensely dark atmosphere the band's vocalist Ben spawns through his demonic vocal work. The atmosphere is so penetrating it is almost possible to hear the evil dripping drop by drop onto you especially during the slower tracks like "Salt".

The band's songwriting is impressive for a debut album as all songs are nicely constructed and stand well against the genre heavy weights such as Darkthrone, who Sonic Reign borrows from heavily in their sound. But black metal has never really been my thing and therefore I am probably not the right person to judge "Raw Dark Pure" objectively, but even so, the occasional instrumental wizardry and the atmospheric suffocation is worth some praise. My grade is based on purely a guess as without much familiarity to the genre (other than Darkthrone) it is next to impossible to rate the album against its contemporaries - check it out if you're into the black metal thing and if not, give this one a pass.

Download: Fucked Up But Glorious, Reminiscence Of Imperial Wrath
For the fans of: Darkthrone
Listen: Myspace

Release date 10.04.2007
Metal Blade
Provided by Target ApS