Black metal | Death metal | Doom metal | Metal
100%
Runemagick—Voyage to Desolation / Dawn of the End (2008)
Details
Recorded at Magick Sound Studio / Los Angered Recording 2006. Mixed and mastered by Ricklas Rudolfsson and Emma Rudolfsson at Los Angered Recording 2007.
Additional recordings for this release made at Magick Sound Studio 2007.
Band
- Ricklas Rudolfsson—Vocals and guitar
- Emma Rudolfsson—Bass guitar
- Daniel Moilanen—Drums
Tracks
- Preludium—enter the circle
- Voyage to desolation
- Chthonic temple smoke
- Retaliation
- Volcano throne
- Incantation 444
- Magus of fire
- Dawn of the end
Review
I’ve been trying to play catch-up on my reviews this week, setting myself an ambitious target of four or five releases to review (I’m actually writing this in late April). And then I got to this album and like the music everything slowed down.
Three-piece Runemagick hail from Surte, Sweden (a town of nearly 6,000 residents about 15km north of Gothenburg. Their style is mid-tempo doom-inspired death metal; think Hellhammer, early Celtic Frost or Bathory. Their music is funereal and atmospheric, plodding and crushing, dreary and murky. But it ain’t half good!
That was the problem. When I find an album that I really enjoy listening to, I end up playing it again and again. And the albums queued up behind it get neglected for a bit.
The album opens with an atmospheric track (“Preludium—enter the circle”) featuring sparse drums, a bell and chanting. It leads into “Voyage of desolation”, which has a doomy Candlemass feel.
The rest of the album follows in the same vein: thick doom riffs, heavily carving their way through the songs. There is atmosphere, there is gravitas, there is space. Ricklas Rudlofsson’s vocals have a baritone gruffness like Tom G Warrior (Hellhammer Celtic Frost/Triptykon).
Conclusion
This album conjures images of dark Scandinavian winters. This could be the soundtrack to the apocalypse (had Slayer not got there first).
I’ve been really impressed with this album. This is definitely going to be grouped amongst my favourites from this project.
Review score: 100%