On their second album, the Norwegian group of Nettlecarrier deliver seven tracks of rugged black metal, with murky mixing swamping the battering percussion and keening guitar while the gurgling hisses spike into howls for the vocals. Not much new is done with the style, but the group does a good job of building atmosphere and sound density before throwing in sharp turns or drops, and the rhythms retain a compelling force throughout the album. Unfortunately, the mood, tempo, and song structuring are all fairly monotonous, with only minor touches of variation between them. A few keyboard inserts would have gone a long way, while also being a neat little homage to early Norwegian black metal, but as it is, the album starts feeling stale enough to undermine its harshness about halfway through its run.
Scrambled Brains 