SPECTRAL WOUND

A Diabolic Thirst PROFOUND LORE

Necrotic Canadians feast at the altar of 90s Norway

From the Transilvanian Hunger-like cover to the frenzied, unrelenting nature, everything about Spectral Wound screams ‘90s Norway!’ – until you learn that they’re from 21st-century Montreal. There isn’t much originality going on across the six, short and savage attacks on their third album, but they’re executed with such aplomb it’s impossible not to get swept along in the icy tirade. Imperial Saison Noire’s walls of relentlessly cold tremolo picking culminate in a righteous solo. Frigid And Spellbound

is apocalyptic in portent and magnitude, with hooks like scythes. Mausoleal

Drift provides a mid-point breather for less than three of its nine minutes before exploding into feral rage. Metal doesn’t always need to be original, sometimes it just needs excellence in execution. In this, Spectral Wound prove themselves accomplished reapers. ■■■■■■■■■■

FOR FANS OF: Watain, Mayhem, Sargeist

TOM O’BOYLE