Welcome back mental heads to another episode of The Great Metal Debate podcast. It's Xander once again and today we will be talking about the new album Black Flame Eternal from Atlanta, Georgia's gothic black metallers Cloak.

I have enjoyed their music ever since 2019 when my friend and fellow YouTuber Richard Metal Fan introduced me to their 2nd full-length The Burning Dawn which had just come out at the time. I found myself enjoying the music so much that I ordered their tape, CD and long sleeve shirt.

Though it has been a while, I even revisited their 2017 debut To Venomous Depths to refresh on their earlier work before diving into this new album.

"Ethereal Fire" is a killer opening track that sets the overall tone for the remainder of the album. It puts the group vocals to great use as they are timed very well. The stand alone drum beats at the beginning and end were also a very nice touch.

Whenever a black metal band makes the Eoh sound. Many metalheads have coined phrased them as the Blasphemy Eoh's. "With Fury And Allegiance" has a few of those throughout the track but the trashy guitar sound and the vocal speed together remind me a little bit of Goatwhore. But I also like the calm slowed down part halfway through.

"Shadowlands" begins with a very smooth guitar riff and even a very nice solo early on after the one minute mark. It really fits in with that melodic sound that I'm used to hearing from the two guitarists Max Brigham and Scott Taysom. I also really enjoy the spoken word section just after with the lyrics "For I have shed the blood. I have walked beyond the gates. And I have sworn, to you I bow."

The first single that Season Of Mist released for this album was the track called "Invictus" which definitely sounds like a classic thrash metal riff until you hear the blackened style of vocals. I love how the lyrics "In the cold of night I watch it fall. Tot he morning star my spirit calls" are said as a chant but at the same time doesn't repeat.
Three weeks later, a lyrical video for the song "Seven Thunders" was dropped. I won't spoil the lyrics for this one, you'll just have to check it out for yourself. I will say that they rhythm has a very black-n-roll kind of feel to it which I enjoy very much.

Next we get the song "Eye Of The Abyss" which has a winding sound to the guitars but later on in the track we get an audibly groovy bass line laid down by Billy Robinson.
Last month the band put out their 3rd single for this record called "The Holy Dark" which kicks off with a drum intro performed by Sean Bruneau. The sound mixing really highlighted his capabilities in this one.

As a lead-in to the concluding song we have sort of a prelude called "Heavenless". It sounds like an instrumental because the spoken word is purposely faded. You can still look up the lyrics but the calming music does overpower Scott's voice.

And then for the closer we come to the album title track "Black Flame Eternal".

I can't wait to see them for the first time during their album release show on Saturday June 10th!

The Great Metal Debate

Metal Debate Album Review - Black Flame Eternal (Cloak)

Welcome back metal heads to another episode of The Great Metal Debate podcast. It's Xander once again with another album review. Today I will be looking at the Gr1m and kvlt Norwegian black metal band called ... Tiss-juder?

Nah, I'm just joking. The bands name is pronounced like "Shoo-der"

And this is their 6th full-length studio album titled Helvegr. This kreig outing was released on June 23rd through Season of Mist records.

I feel like the best way to describe this band would be like what would happen if a raw black metal band or to receive a good studio mixing from a professional sound engineer.

I was first introduced to this band way back in 2015 when someone recommended that I check out their 2004 album Desert Northern Hell. Later on I got my hands on a copy of their 2002 record Demonic Possession. A few months ago while I was working one of the football games at my job, I wanted to tune out the fucking annoying college marching band so I started blaring the Kill For Satan album in my noise canceling ear buds.

To be honest, I have never been fully blown away by this band musically but enjoyed the very raspy vocals. To me they are the closest to Pest era Gorgoroth that we're going to get despite the less desirable production.

Tsjuder has always been a stand out among all the others in the genre because they don't sound like their music was recorded with a potato or an old Nokia phone that you can play Snake on.

If you're new to this band, most of the black metal elitists would point you in the direction of their older material but I on the other hand would strongly suggest introducing potential new fans to this album. I feel like showing the younger generation the raw side of this band might be a turn off but this album manages to keep the raw feel while still having some standout guitar riffs.
A great example of this would be the hit new track titled "Prestehammeren". Another one would be for their song "Gods of Black Blood" and it even has a nice corny music video to go with it. Sometimes cheesy black metal videos work and other times they don't, in this case it does. It has everything you could ever want in a black metal music video from: burning inverted crosses, to skulls to the band members carrying torches and screaming into the camera in full corpse paint.
"Iron Beast" is a great way to begin this record but "Surtr" is one of my favorites.

If we're being completely honest, this album is good at maintaining its prowess but at the same time it also lacks a lot of pizzazz. There isn't a whole lot of standout moments throughout this record but if you enjoy this particular style of black metal then I see their more loyal fans get a kick out of it.

I could do more for this review like give shout outs to the band members or try to pronounce some of their foreign song titles, but I just don't see any real reason for me to put more effort into this. Again, this is a good album but at the same time it's not something that I want to rattle on and on about.

In conclusion, I don't mean to be so lukewarm about a band that I like but I'm not going to give this a higher rating than a 7 out of 10. If you want to support them, you can get yourself a nice little patch for your battle vest like I did for mine, or you can buy their merch from their Bandcamp page.

Metal Debate Album Review - Helvegr (Tsjuder)

Podcast where Brian and Gomthog engage in a lively debate of heavy metal music as well as interviewing artists and talking to fans.  Occasional explicit language.

New tracks tagged #Season of Mist