The Black was a project of the late Jon Nodtveidt, featuring a darker, less harmonious side to the work he did with Dissection. Whilst not exactly being a Darkthone clone, it certainly has a much more foreboding, evil feeling to it (I suspect that this is mainly due to the fact it has a lot less melody in it, and Jon's vocals sound a lot harsher and unhinged than they do on any of his other releases).
The album is saturated in prime, unholy hatred, with frenetic blasting riffwork (occasionally sounding almost death metal-like in tracks like 'After My Prayers') fighting for supremacy over the crushing blastbeats and waves of vocal abhorrence that batter you into submission. There are a couple of small synthesizer parts (the album opener, is in fact the most worthless of them all, certainly a contender for 'most pointless intro' if ever I heard one). However, its usage in 'The Black Opal Eye' more than makes up for that, before making way for a frosty opening riff that flays flesh from bone, replete with pick-scrapes and bile-spitting vocals. There's not a massive amount of variation to be found here however, a part of which may be thanks to the dull production job as much of the lack of riff diversity, so once hitting play you're in for just under 40 minutes worth of evil, satan-worshipping darkness - nothing more, nothing less.
Whilst 'The Priest of Satan' isn't quite on the same level as Jon's classic work with Dissection, it's still musically strong enough to warrant looking into.
For fans of: Throne of Ahaz, Mayhem, Marduk, Armagedda.
