Year of release: 2019
Label: Werewolf Records
Rating: 8,5 / 10
I have already written about VARGRAV before, so I will repeat only the main thesis, which is already clear if you look closely at the aesthetics of the design of albums, the names of songs and the genre. VARGRAV is a fair follower of “In The Nightside Eclipse”, and I must add that this is hell of a follower. EMPEROR's debut, even though I don’t like it, was and is a landmark and cult work that couldn’t be repeated either by the authors themselves or by the clone bands that I know. But VARGRAV - he can do that. Without hesitation, the Finnish musician takes everything best from EMPEROR and building up his own albums, based on this stuff. The field of activity in front of him is enormous. After all, “In The Nightside Eclipse” is one of those unique albums (another example that comes to mind is “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”), whose sound side is rather difficult to copy, and to copy it's inner essence is almost unreal. VARGRAV manages to grab onto it, to water his sound with that immortal cosmic magic. With a wave of his hands, in front of the listener he changes the landscape and erects grim castles whose spiers stretch to the full moon hanging in the starry skies. Feast for ear and spirit!
The intense and dramatic sound of VARGRAV s slightly simpler than that of the EMPEROR; keyboard parts are noticeably more sophisticated than guitar parts. Perhaps, in order to bring the project to perfection, the author would have to make his riffs a little more intriguing - but not to collapse into a guitar wankery as it happened with his inspirers. But he does not forget about small interludes, radically different in sound and mood from the main mass of material, and therefore they also leave some trace in memory. So you can not just absorb "Reign in Supreme Darkness", but also simply listen to it. The album comes out in 2 weeks on Werwolf Records and Hells Headbangers - grab it!
English (UK) 
Крыўская