Christchrushing, angelripping and churchburning.  The strength of the band is also their weakness

As intro, some attributes to describe the character of this Swiss/ German quintet: Unlight are fast. Unlight are blasphemous. Unlight are devastating. Very important detail: The strength of the band is also their weakness. But later on to this. “Inferno” contains 9 hymns of pure christchrushing, angelripping and churchburning Black Metal. No more keyboards like in the early days (when you think at the demos “Des Baphomet’s Rückkehr” and “The Nordic Stormbringer”), no replacement for Lamia has been looked for. I guess it’s difficult to form an opinion about how the songs would have sounded with keyboard, but I’m very sure that it would’t have fit. The main influences of Unlight, namely Immortal (most of all in the kind of the thrashy-inspired riffing) and Marduk (the way the leadguitars cut their melodies) never had keyboards. Blastbeats and uptempo reign, just very few moments and passages are a bit slower, most of the time, a furious atmosphere of death and destruction is dropping out of the boxes. 

Clichés, you have to like clichés when you want to like Unlight. “Impale The Nazarene”, “Fukked By The Devil” or “I Believe In Satan”, this is the language Unlight are speaking in. And the burning church on the frontcover is also not very revolutionary. The thing that’s most disturbing for me is the booklet: It’s cool done, of course, but hell, look at the one from Marduk’s “Plague Angel”… 

But let’s return to the music. “Inferno” (felicitous title, absolutely) has been produced in the Iguana Studio in Freiburg (where Atritas have recorded their famous “Where Witches Burnt”), and the sound is exactly like it has to be: Clean, but rough (sounds paradoxical, but I can’t describe it better), full of aggression and with the essential dark power. Black Metal is nothing without dark powers, and satanic hymns like the titletrack, “A Splendid Blaze Of Angelwings” (with a cool guitar solo at the end and infernal hysteric screams of Blaspherion) or the hateful and with catchy guitars furnished “Fukked By The Devil” show the strength of Unlight. But you can’t deny that there is also kind of a limit in the songwriting, the innovation, the own character is not strong enough – yet. 

I’m sure Unlight will go their way, and “Inferno” is the base for it. A strong album, but there’s also the possibility to augment – and that’s not a bad thing at all. Let’s finish with the intro of “Inferno”:

 “Luzifers Tag ist gekommen!!” 

Enough said.