### Lantern: Below

#### 09/07/13 || gk

Lantern’s 2011 EP “Subterranean effulgence” was one impressive slice of Finnish death metal and had me wanting more. Just about two years later, this duo is back with their full length debut and “Below” is one nasty piece of work. The sound here is some 90’s derived old school death metal but the songs are all cloaked in that dark atmosphere that the Finns seem to excel at and it makes “Below” an album worth checking out.

Opener “Rites of descent” bears down with a dissonant but catchy riff and drums that sound hollow and a bit buried in the mix. The vocals are powerful and placed just right, sitting comfortably over the jagged riffing. This is a swirling, maelstrom of a song and “below” is off to a pretty great start. “Revenant” starts all atmospheric and doomy with a great guitar line, constantly threatening to go out of control but ultimately building a strange and unsettling atmosphere. “Entrenching presences” is all murky and twisted with some off kilter guitar overdubs adding to the chaos of the song. “Demons in my room” is mid paced and probably the most traditional song on “Below”. It maintains a kind of lo-fi death-doom vibe to good effect. Album closer “From the ruins” starts in unrelenting fashion with dissonant, fast paced riffing before changing things up and hinting at slowing things down only to embrace the chaos all over again.

More than anything else, Lantern succeeds in creating an unrelenting and disturbing atmosphere on “Below”. This is some sick and nasty death metal that might be low on technicality but has enough energy to power a small town. Cruciatus handles all the guitars, bass and drums on the album and does a pretty commendable job. Necrophilos has as powerful half shout/ half growl approach that sound like a thicker King Fowley but he’s a bit too low in the mix on this album. Chaos might be the motif here but there are enough kick ass old school riffs to come back to. The solos are wild and out of control but fit in nicely with the music. The bass and drums are both buried in the mix but this just adds to the overall atmosphere of this album.

Lantern set fairly high expectation with the EP before this and I’m happy to say the duo has managed to live up to it. This is some nasty, old school worshipping death metal that manages to stay away from sounding like all the usual suspects. Sure, the murky production might put a few people off but along with Krypts, Lantern are a Finnish death metal band to keep a close watch on.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Dark Descent
- Website: www.lantern.com
- Band
- Necrophilos: vocals
- Cruciatus: guitar, bass, drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Rites of Descent
- 02. Revenant
- 03. Entrenching Presences
- 04. Manifesting Shambolic Aura
- 05. Demons in My Room
- 06. Below
- 07. From the Ruins