THARAPHITA

Release Year: 2014
Artist Origin: EST
Style: expressive epic pagan black metal

seven years in the making, the fifth full-length comeback of Estonia's pagan metal leaders impresses with noticeably rougher, old school oriented sound, where epic character of earlier recordings is reinforced by a more direct, punchier, and truly effective dominance of guitar riffs steeped in the spirit of Venom and Hellhammer, while maintaining a combative character and patriotic stance typical for the Baltic scene, with highly expressive atmosphere repeatedly flooding the background and adding melodic depth, thus these eight tracks come across as a deliberate step toward more traditional, lively, and infectious sound, where innovation is not the priority but rather energy, authenticity, and strongly defined identity, which is exactly what the genre's core audience values most in these northern devils