As far as black metal records go, this one hit the spot. I’ve heard a lot of black metal lately that just sounds like a fruitless copypasta of the days of old, but with no spirit. Why Avgrund does it justice here is because Announcing Spirit Heritage is a melding of classic and memorable tremolo riffs along with some of the more dissonant and slightly more progressive atmospheres traversed by acts like latter-era Blut Aus Nord for example. Not only that, but the record has some surprisingly punchy moments and doesn’t sound like the same thing for every single song. I was hearing far too much of this from some of those demos and underground LP’s I’ve been listening to on the internet lately. Some guys want black metal to sound extremely raw, but with no real purpose. Avgrund give us a purpose here and show a method to their madness which makes it shine high above the hundreds of BS releases I’ve been subjected to over the past few months. One may say that black metal is starting to get hokey, but at least with acts like this, you have well needed spirit. A dark spirit surely, but we’d simply have it no other way.
