✦✦✧✧ Here is an album that is trying its damnedest to get me to hate it immediately. The amateurish album art, the stubbornly raw production, the tired opening gambit… all of these are sure signs of tiredness, if not vacuity. But push past the first impressions, and you may be surprised by the latest from these Norwegian black metal legends.

☆☆☆☆ The idea of this album isn’t terrible, but its execution is so tedious that it can only be seen as a chore.