One thing is for certain: If you feel like an epic story from the ages set in a dystopian future, Bal-Sagoth is the way to go. And they never disappoint. Particularly not on this album.

As is what could be considered standard, The Power Cosmic primarily focuses on the lyrics (and, by extension, the vocals) and uses the musical instruments in the background to create ambience, most notably the feel of an entire world rising up against itself in preparation for massive, epic battles to come.
The intro of the album “The Awakening of the Stars” is a short instrumental song, running at 1:30 minutes and serves, like many other of particularly Bal-Sagoth's intros, to set the mood of the album: Dark and brooding, yet with a spark of life fighting for its place in the world.

The tempo races by as the drums pound  away with the guitars doing their best to keep up while still  managing to produce fairly simple, yet catchy riffs. All the while, the keyboard is pummelling away, giving depth and a sense of dread with its almost organ-like sound.
The vocals are delivered partly by growls and partly by a deep, narrative and at times almost whispering bass voice that would make even James Earl Jones jealous.
The majority of the songs on the album are extensions of already well-established stories told in other songs from other albums made by Bal-Sagoth. A single one, however (“The Scourge of the Fourth Celestial Host”) as well as the title of the album, The Power Cosmic refers to a Marvel Comics story, the battle between The Silver Surfer and a creature called (unsurprisingly) the Fourth Celestial Host. Bonus points for writing a song that intertwined with by childhood!

Unlike on other albums by Bal-Sagoth that I have reviewed, I can find absolutely no flaw in this album: The fast-paced instruments assaulting your eardrums successfully sets the tone for the scene, while the spoken/growling vocals splendidly completely captivate you and drag you directly across several awe-inspiring worlds, including the Marvel universe, and leave you wanting more chapters from each of these “books”.

Like I said in the beginning, Bal-Sagoth never disappoints. If you are looking for some Symphonic Black Metal with heavy emphasis on storytelling and lyrics, this is the way to go.
It will quickly lull you into a trance similar to what happens when reading a good book and tell you grand stories from the edges of the universes.

www.myspace.com/balsagoth