In Battle – In Battle

In a classic example of not planning ahead properly, I can now sit down and review the first ever release from Swedish Death/Black Metallers In Battle – The band whose ‘second’ ever release I was graciously given the chance to review not even a week ago. I have no excuse for this, I really should have spent the additional five minutes to properly go through the releases in my inbox instead of just grabbing the one on the top and starting from there. But I digress. 

The debut album, released in the mid-nineties as it were, carries the name of the band itself namely In Battle, as was the proverbial style at the time. Concise, traditional, well understood. The same goes for the twelve tracks present upon the track which, much in the same vein of the songs found in their latter release, perfectly encapsulate the era of the genre in which the album was originally conceived: Powerfully aggressive, incessant and built around short, catchy riffs meant to be tearing through a crowd at unhealthy decibels. And much like the last time I pulled this Swedish quartet into the limelight, they manage to pull off the mixing of Death and Black Metal genres surprisingly well without giving off the impression that it is one genre heavilyi influenced by the other: Instead, they seem to be carrying equal weight which, when done right, can be quite a tour de force. 

Now, I do recall mentioning last time that I am rarely a fan of the mixing of genres (with notable exceptions). This still holds true, but I will say that In Battle as an album manages this significantly better than its successor with tracks such as “Enchant Me” bringing forth pleasant correlations with God Dethroned – Mind, I do see In Battle more as a spiritual precursor who set the foundations of what were yet to come, being as far as I know, one of the first bands to delve into this approach succesfully (aside from Dissection naturally, who came to the same conclusion with a definitely different outcome). 

All in all, a recommendation for me if you are looking for a forty-three minute distraction in the vein of early Panzerchrist, Setherial and Bloodthorn.