Review by Jason

Decorating their barrage of tremolo-picked riffs, nail-chomping vocals, and skin-bashing drums with symphonic keyboard work and a female vocal, Russia’s Artania display more than a hint of Dimmu Borgir in their sound. An interesting work, Night Shall Crown Ye draws on a host of influences to attempt to create a sound that works well in some areas and not so well in others. Across the album there are some impressive riffs, tight, focussed, and razor sharp, yet their insistent repetition does tend to diminish the impact of both riff and song. Because of this, at times the songs can become monotonous and flat. It must be said however, that that’s not always the case. The songs are, for lack of a better description, abbreviated epics, combining what could have easily resulted in a collection of eight minute-plus opuses into five minute concentrated bursts of black metal magick. The presence of keys adds to the album rather than detracts, though the keyboard sounds are a little too ‘plastic’ here and there to enrich their dark edge. The drum work is precise and technical with the odd indication of intellectual playing scattered between the double-kick bombardments. The female vocal, particularly in the title track and in ‘San-Grinyol (Theatre of Death)’, adds a gothic dimension to the album’s aesthetic. Shifting between the atmospheric, the melodic, the symphonic, and the aggressive, Artania’s sound is cold and somehow velvet.

As a debut, Night Shall Crown Ye shows promise. Clearly adept in instrumentation, Artania have the ability to craft music that is well structured, combining layers that blend to complement each other to create heavy atmospheres that reek of the bleak, the barren, and the romantic. The gothic elements are the band’s strength and could afford them an edge that if developed, may serve to distinguish them from the host of bands that live in Dimmu Borgir’s mighty shadow. Were they to improve their keyboard sounds, maybe even incorporate real orchestration, and strive to become innovative as opposed to imitative, they may even be able to cast their own shadow. But at the moment, those nights are a way off...

Track Listing:

1. Alchemic Dream (Demonic Mantra)
2. Night Shall Crown Ye
3. Mysteries of Order of Priorate Zion
4. Liturgy in Black Colours
5. San-Grinyol (Theatre of Death)
6. Fogs of Witches Heath
7. Towards Northern Wind
8. Thirteenth Sign of Nostradamus
9. Secrets of the Moon

6 out of 10

www.huntersmoonrecords.com/artania.html