Paganism isn’t all about dancing naked around a fire, building a wicker man and setting fire to the sacrifices within as Julius Caesar would have had us believe. Instead, it is about being in tune with nature, its balance and its cycle and no band knows this more than Iskandr with the Dutch black metal band releasing their latest album ‘Vergezicht’.
Now, Pagan black metal isn’t about burning churches down or being anti-Christianity and Iskandr know this. What the band deliver is an album of expansive black metal of six tracks clocking in at just over an hour. Now, this might seem like a tall order, particularly as two of those tracks are over 13 minutes long, but for black metal fans who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, ‘Vergezicht’ offers plenty to explore as atmospheric passages give way to the standard black metal array of blast beats, tremolo picking and demonic shrieks. This is delivered with some real panache and skill with ‘Vergezicht’ having all the appeal of other Dutch black metal hitters such as Turia, Nusquama and Fluisteraars.
For those who like their black metal to sit below the mainstream output and deliver a trve kvlt feel, then ‘Vergezicht’ is an album to check out. It won’t have much appeal beyond the black metal scope, but for those fans of pagan black metal, this may just be an album that ends up being played over and over again.
