Melodic black metal is sort of a bastard child. When you think melodic black metal, a good amount of imagery comes up, usually ranging from the more queer antics of Children of Bodom and its clones (with their blackened take on melodic death metal mixed with power metal and a festering mound of beer-enema induced shit) to the more respectable antics of the bombastic folk black metal drunken revelry of groups like Finntroll to the sheer grinding speed and fury of Finnish blackened screamers Impaled Nazarene. Somewhere in all this madness you have Swedish melodic black metallers Naglfar.

These guys are a lot closer to a blackened take on the Gothenburg sound. But unlike their Swedish compatriots, their sound hasn’t deviated as insanely much despite the various departures in musicians. Pariah marks the absence of vocalist Jens Ryden and the complete turn-over of vocals to bassist Kristopher Olivius, yet Naglfar sounds no different vocally than they did on Sheol. Actually the entire album sounds more like an extension of Sheol rather than a new album.

This is somewhat of a mixed bag. Sheol had an awesome opener and some catchy songs, but by the time you hit the fourth track, it petered out into one of the most tiresome releases that year. Pariah has a similar opening, but manages to drag out those elements through the rest of the record. As a result, you’re listening to nearly 40 minutes of the best traits of Sheol. But on the other hand, is 8-10 minutes of a few melodic riffs and formulaic blastbeats extended over a near 40 minute period really going to be that entertaining? Not really; it will bore you, but for different reasons than Sheol. Rather than get bored from the dull half of an album, you’ll be bored from the extension of the same good shit way past its length.

However, despite this flaw, Pariah is decently better than Sheol as this boredom won’t necessarily kick in on the first listen like Sheol did. By the time you hit the middle of the album, "None Shall Be Spared" and "And the World Shall Be Your Grave" manage to re-inject some of the interesting ferocity of the intro and first song or two, which is a lot more than can be said of Sheol. And despite the tendency for these past two Naglfar releases to bore the hell out of guys like myself, there are some decent melodies and is honestly worth a listen or two.

Naglfar isn’t going to win any black metal awards with Pariah, and more than likely your average "true" black metal fan will abhor the bombastic, melodic guitar work, but it’s worth a listen, especially if you’re one of the asses that adore Sheol.

Written By: Necro-tron