Review by Fran on February 20, 2022.

Everything in this record is obscure and condensed evil. Composition, production, vocal style, lyrics, the cover, all of that fit the occultist concept and image of the band.

The riffing is pretty straightforward, fast, dark and mysterious. Tone interval suggests lots of tension and suspense, giving you the feeling something wrong is about to happen. Pretty cool. There are melodic guitar lines everywhere, designed for that purpose. Despite being simple and easy to play, the riffs are extremely expressive. When you're talking about songwriting, simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication, and they nailed it here. The traditional death metal outfit is combined with a serious doom metal influence, there are also very slow passages driven by open power chords, super heavy; that combined with the ultra deep and low and guttural vocals sound pretty much like the lamentations from the souls trapped in hell. Take for example the last song of the album, which is 8 minutes long. The way it builds up; slow, dark intro for the first couple of minutes, then percussive accentuation to introduce traditional death metal riffs for a couple of bars, and then the whole bands kicks in in a blast beat frenzy. Lovely. They manage to build expectation with suspense and then fulfill it with brutality.

Production isn’t modern at all and is not very polished. It's actually pretty rough but you can understand each instrument most of the time. The raw character of the sound quality adds a lot of density to the album, the whole listening experience is super heavy, no matter how fast or slow they play. Drums sound completely old school, and they have a nice reverb on them to help them mix, and have vintage sound. Performance is pretty basic but is works, this isn't about being technical, this is about going to hell. Guitars are very downtuned, probably C, I'm not sure, but you can bet they have lots of lows and have a massive, super dense body. The guitar tone is heavily distorted for sure, but is also sent to the back by some effect, probably a reverb, so they sound even more deep and dismal. Bass guitar lays a solid base for the guitars to develop some harmonies, and it has a nice crunchy tone. Even if it doesn't stand out that much, it works pretty well. Vocally, production and the infernal and demented performance are the strongest points of the album. The gutturals’ level on the mix is kind of high, and they add echo effects that make it sound absolutely sepulchral.

Mortal Throne Of Nazarene is a cult album, indispensable for death metal fans. The epitome of the genre. Pure evil, sick shit.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Michael on December 27, 2020.

There was actually hardly an announcement of a new album in recent times, about which I was so excited and eagerly awaited, as that of the new Isengard album. After 25 years Fenriz and his band (and this means him alone) finally release a new material, although new is not really true. It is long lost material that Fenriz found again earlier this year, probably while cleaning the house.

Production-wise it is similar to Vinterkygge and Høstmjørke, the sound sounds like in the rehearsal room (according to Fenriz it was recorded in the "Sorkness brothers' porta studio", the later "Necrohell" studio), the sound is quite rough and somehow muddy. But as an Isengard fan you are used to that from the other two albums.

The songs are a big surprise in contrast to the production. Although they also have a somewhat dark atmosphere, but that's more because they are mostly kept pretty doomy. They often sound very much like Black Sabbath. Besides our all British doom gods there are also other influences like Queensyrche, Crimson Glory or the old Agent Steel (you can hear that especially in the vocals). The guitars have a wonderful sawing and mangy sound and the drums are played wonderfully rumble, now this does not mean that the instruments are played dilettantishly, but it just fits the production. If you look at the influences that were used for this album, it is clear that there are no black metal hits like "Fog of Evil", "Nestlepaks" or "I Kamp Met Kvitekrist" to expect. Actually a pity, but also Vårjevdøgn has some really cool songs to offer. 'Dragonfly' starts with blatantly high vocals, which at least I definitely didn't expect from Fenriz. The song is pretty catchy and has an almost punky middle part. 'A Shape in the Dark' stands out with its almost epic guitar riffs, the song could be better produced a real classic in classic heavy metal, 'Rockemillion', is a pretty catchy bastard of metal and punk, the riffing reminds me partly of "Doctor, Doctor" by UFO. 'The Light' is probably the closest to a song that could have been on the previous albums, doomy with the typical Fenriz vocals.

Well, was my long anticipation for the album worth it? I would say yes, because even if it didn't become an Isengard album like the others, there are still very cool songs to be found here, which tend in a more classic metal direction, but are still quite recommendable. So thumbs up for the album!!!

Rating: 7.6 out of 10