Watain – Lawless Darkness

• Country: Sweden
• Style: Black metal
• Label: Season of Mist
• Release date: 7 June 2010

What does darkness mean when it is not simply the absence of light? Erik Danielsson’s answer, given around the release, was that light is the force that defines and restricts, and that its absence is chaos unbound. Lawless Darkness is built on that idea, and it plays like a long descent into a cathedral with no ceiling.

Watain spent two months at Necromorbus Studio in Alvik, and the record feels both grander and more melodic than before. “Malfeitor” storms in, “Reaping Death” is a black metal single with a real hook, and “Four Thrones” rises into chanted, almost liturgical passages. “Hymn to Qayin” drops into a hushed spoken passage before surging back, and the devotion in the lyrics is total; nothing here is irony. At over seventy minutes the album is a long rite, yet it seldom sags.

Then comes “Waters of Ain”, more than fourteen minutes of slow, mournful grandeur that closes the album like a candle burning down to the floor.

Best tracks:

Malfeitor
Reaping Death
Four Thrones
Waters of Ain

Author’s rating: 8.7/10