Review: IMMORTAL – War Against All

Year: 2023
Label: Nuclear Blast
Rating: 8 / 10

Writing about IMMORTAL music on this album is probably the most useless thing I can do, since it will resemble an attempt to describe each AC/DC album separately. There are not so many synonyms in the world to describe the same thing in different words every time. Now it will be better to say about what IMMORTAL is in 2023 - the extreme metal analogue of MANOWAR. Demonaz once again dropped all the details of his ice constructor on the floor and assembled a new album from them. The same words in the same lyrics about the same Blashyrkh; the same riffs in the same songs. IMMORTAL remains somewhere between self–parody, self-plagiarism and straying true to its own tradition - it depends on your personal point of view, I guess.

The funny thing is that now the endless holy wars on the topic of "Demonaz vs. Abbath" have finally lost their meaning. Like, the former wrote the evil swirly music of classical albums, and the latter composed soft-bodied heavy metal riffs that made the band commercial. Well now, “War Against All” has EVERYTHING - from the fierce snowstorms of “Blizzard Beasts” and the mystical sounds of “Pure Holocaust” to the diretct quotation of “Sons of Northern Darkness". With or without Abbath and Horgh, the essence of IMMORTAL remains so unchanged that, probably, it will work even without Demonaz at the wheel. By the way, famous Ice Dale and the young clown for faggots drummer of GAAHL'S WYRD helped him with recording, but, obviously, they didn't influence the music.

In general, the new album is quite similar to "March of the Norse" - this is what I expected from the predecessor, but received only now. Therefore, I liked ”War Against All", since the old tricks still work. If Demonaz plans to continue following the schedule of ”1 album in 5 years", then won't even get boring. I will also note that the album has a very good sound (by Nuclear Blast standards) -something that “Northern Chaos Gods" lacked.