Pest are back with another grim assault of Black Metal. It’s hard for me to review this album because it doesn’t really offer anything new. It’s classic formulaic Black Metal and all I can say about it is that it is more of the same. So how am I going to write more than three lines about this I don’t know… and that people, is the reviewer’s odyssey. But anyway, people bored to death of generic Black Metal can stop reading now, those of you interested (because of some strange reason) on reading this humble man’s ranting may continue.

The Swedish Pest (not to be confused with the Finnish and German one… I know, I know, Black Metal can be highly original at times) plays Black Metal in it’s most raw and stripped down form. Aggressive, dark, heavy and keyboard-less. The band plays mid paced at times, fast at others, but without falling in the blatant speed abuse of bands like Marduk and Dark Funeral. Some good riffs thrown here and there, and the songs are varied enough to keep it remotely interesting, so in general the song writing is decent, but of course, never outside of the classic Black Metal formula, which makes me think: “Is that vaguely admirable?”

The production is quite good, very powerful and with a nice emphasis in vocals, which happen to be quite good by the way, a bit different than the usual grim vox.

You see, the problem of Black Metal these days isn’t only the quality of it, but also the insane amount of bands doing the same album again and again and again. The album per se might not be bad, but the fact that it has been done so many times is what makes it easy to lose interest. In Total Contempt is a great example of this.

As already said a thousand times in this review, the album is as formulaic as it can be and there’s nothing really new here. People wanting some good Black Metal in the vein of Darkthrone should check this one out, but those of you who are interested in something a lot (or a bit) more different should not even doubt on skipping this one.

Hmmm… five paragraphs on the album. Am I good or what?