Immortal - All Shall Fall review
| Band: | Immortal |
| Album: | All Shall Fall |
| Style: | Black metal |
| Release date: | September 2009 |
01. All Shall Fall
02. The Rise Of Darkness
03. Hordes To War
04. Norden On Fire
05. Arctic Swarm
06. Mount North
07. Unearthly Kingdom
Immortal have risen from the white ashes to reclaim their throne as kings of black metal. Not many bands have been as important to a genre of music than Immortal have been to black metal over the years. Now the band are back with their first album in seven years, All Shall Fall.
The album carries on exactly where Sons Of Northern Darkness finished. Stylistically All Shall Fall is extremely similar, the guitars are very melodic and as a whole the album stays at the same familiar pressing pace without going overboard. The frostbitten trio show no signs of cobwebs, but there is also no apparent attempt to create something truly spectacular. All Shall Fall, although a brilliant come-back album, is a bit too steady and safe to be hailed as one of the band's greatest works.
Seven years is an extremely long time and it is perhaps unrealistic to have expected anything to the standard of At The Heart Of Winter or any of the band's other classics. All Shall Fall almost seems like the band are just firing up the engine, and it is the future we have to wait for to experience Immortal at their most devastating. With this said, All Shall Fall is still a remarkably enjoyable album to listen to and is very much an album suited for the times.
The opening title track sounds like the soundtrack to a bleak and icy armageddon and "The Rise Of Darkness" follows bringing forth the rhythmic march of the northern tyrants. Melodic plodder "Norden On Fire" brings down the pace, but "Arctic Swarm" soon whips up another blizzard being the most forceful and unrelenting storm on the album.
Immortal have all eyes on them, and to avoid the risk of disappointment have released an extremely solid and safe album that may just underwhelm a few people. For the rest of us though, All Shall Fall is genuinely a glacier of frostbitten delights. Without a bad song on the album and a tidy running time, the album showcases the finest cuts of Immortal in this day and age, and it honestly hasn't felt so empowering to bang the head along to some serious top quality black metal in a long time.
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Black metal
Nuclear Blast
Norway
Length: 40:12
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
Comments page 2 / 4
| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295  |
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| Vikingocalypse; Account deleted |
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| Silent Creeper Senile Veteran Posts: 296  |
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| Doc G. Full Grown Hoser Staff Posts: 9718  |
Written by Guest on 27.09.2009 at 23:32 You just made everything so clear with that statement...it all makes sense now! Thank you, sir! Why such hostility?
---- "I got a lot of really good ideas, problem is, most of them suck." - George Carlin
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469  |
Written by Doc G. on 28.09.2009 at 00:01 I think I understand the logic behind Vikingocalypse's sentence: better being a bit conservative but making a decent album than trying to reinvent the wheel and failing completely. However, the rudeness was unnecessary. I think sometimes people praise too much 'innovation' and attempts to change, even when it leads to sucky albums. I'm one of those people who prefer by far a good old recipe that is enjoyable to innovation only for the sake of innovation. Many bands start to suck when they start to change. In lots of cases, it would have been better for them to stick to what they were good at. I'm aware lots of people will probably disagree, but better repeat yourself than turn to shit. At least it's still listenable.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Hellkommando Posts: 255  |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 27.09.2009 at 21:37 I know, I am not trying to create an argument. I was simply saying that obviously some people really enjoy the album, and that it boils down to personal taste and that calling them lame simply because you don't like them is a tad rich. And yes Lord_Regnier is saying something similar to what I was alluding too.
----  Formerly Desolate Gale
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| X-Ray Rod Skandino Staff Posts: 18274  |
Written by Hellkommando on 28.09.2009 at 07:28 I completely agree with you and Lord_Regnier. The thing about "making an argument about why liking an album is pointless"... I was talking about Valaskjalf. I know you weren't making an argument. :p
---- Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29 Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
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| chained shadows Posts: 1 |
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| Hellkommando Posts: 255 |
Written by X-Ray Rod on 28.09.2009 at 09:55
---- Formerly Desolate Gale
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| Bas Retired Staff Elite Posts: 5591  |
Sons Of Northern Darkness is probably my favourite black metal album. I'll definitely check this one out 
---- BAS - Beautifully Accented Sexiness
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| Motionless Posts: 17  |
Good Review. As for the album I was excpevting more. It 's ok I mean but no more than 7.5
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835  |
I'm listening to it, read what you thought about it, let's see what I think.
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| ioannisk Posts: 75  |
Is it only me or the cover looks like a world of warcraft expansion set?
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| spirit_inblack harshhead Posts: 715  |
You're not the only one man. Aside from that similarity, I don't really like the artwork and haven't heard the album yet, but will post back in a bit when i have.
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 |
To add to what I said earlier: I often see people defending sucky albums by saying "at least they tried to change". It's a worthless argument. It doesn't make a bad album less bad when you hear it. Also, people need to realize that pretty much everything has already been done before in our day an age. We're not in the 80s, when everything had yet to be done in metal, so it was relatively easy to come with something new and original. Asking from bands to change and still come with something enjoyable and innovative with each new album is unrealistic. It's asking too much.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| season of reason Posts: 1 |
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| Konrad Mormon Storm Posts: 707  |
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| Reaper02 Posts: 5 |
Hail the black sun over the Nordic mountains,Immortal new album is here and its a powerful,epic and ferocious record.a masterpiece for the frozen ages to come.:banger2: 
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| DoomGuard Posts: 368  |
You guys always want "new" "innovative" and "experimental" frankly that's pretty annoying nice album
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| wormdrink414 Elite Posts: 1295 |
Written by ioannisk on 28.09.2009 at 15:30 You are not alone. Thankfully WoW is pretty metal, so that connection isn't necessarily to the detriment of the cover. As I posted above, I am too excited for this album. Sons of Northern Darkness is my favorite black metal album (At the Heart of Winter is a close second) so, if All Shall Fall is indeed very similar to it, I might just die. 
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| Reaper02 Posts: 5 |
Hail the black sun over the Nordic mountains,Immortal new album is here and its a powerful,epic and ferocious record.a masterpiece for the frozen ages to come. 
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| SyBReeD Posts: 23  |
YOU SHALL FALL .. If ya think ur making a new album .. plz put music in lol dont forget guys .. We need to lsn to some music 
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| Motionless Posts: 17 |
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| Smurfophagist Posts: 1069  |
The album wasn't disappointing at all. probably because I didn't expect too much, but still...
---- Having a signature is an absolute must.
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 |
Written by season of reason on 29.09.2009 at 15:54 Absolutely not! I hate everything that ends with -core.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Lord_Regnier Posts: 1469 |
Written by DoomGuard on 30.09.2009 at 02:57 I find this attitude annoying too. People who always want something completely new should realize they ask too much. If they believe creating something new is so easy, why don't they start their own band?'Then we'll see if it's so easy. Personally, as long as it's a kind of music I enjoy, I don't care if it has been done already or not. Not to mention this attitude leads to many directionless albums that utterly and hopelessly suck, as soon as this search for novelty is pushed too far.
---- "Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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| Valaskjalf Account deleted |
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| warrior_of_ice Posts: 169  |
Excellent album, it actually sounds like they ditched the, "MUST BE RECORDED ON A FISCHER-PRICE MIC." Black Metal recording attitude and decided to hire a producer. really love this one!:necro:
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| Baz Anderson Staff Posts: 13237  |
Written by warrior_of_ice on 04.10.2009 at 23:23 Is this really what people think of Immortal? Come on! They've had a clear production on their albums since 1999's "At The Heart Of Winter". Even the ones before that weren't bad.
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| Dangerboner Lactation Cnslt Posts: 7262  |
Written by Baz Anderson on 05.10.2009 at 00:30 lol before the album came out, I was hoping that they'd release two discs - one with normal production, and one with low-fi, frostbitten production just to make everyone stfu 
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