Spellcraft - Stirpe Obscura

Stirpe Obscura is a cold blast of northern sounding black metal from the infernal wastelands of Spain.  The Souldevourer opens the album with an intense onslaught of Nordic style black metal with some hyper-fast tempos and frozen melodies that cut like shards of ice.  Haunting acoustic guitars lend a folkish, dream-like quality to the track at about the 7 minute mark as well as some Spanish clean guitars close out the song.  Midgard's vocals are as grim as stone though there are some morbid clean vocals that bring to mind some Attila-esque passages from De Mysteriis.  The title-track unleashes a powerful firestorm of icy melodies which settle into a set of Kampfar-ish folk riffs.  As the song progresses some Skydancer era Dark Tranquillity influences work their way into the songwriting in the form of moving melodies and fierce guitarwork.  I am not a huge fan of the overly dramatic clean vocals that open Sons of the Dying Sun.  Also the songwriting for this track doesn't quite grab me as much though there is some nice bass guitar work that bubbles to the surface during the song.  The acoustic guitarwork during the song is not as inspired as some of the earlier passages.  A gothic mood dominates Beyond the Lost Forest's early section until a frenzied gale of black metal guitars blows out of my speakers and covers me in a layer of frost.  Death metal rhythms pummel my ear drums towards the 2:30 mark only to relent to more black metal horror.  One of the biggest drawbacks that a lot of bands face to my ears is drum production and Spellcraft suffer from this flaw as well because bass drums sound plastic on multiple occasions.  I'll admit I was surprised at how deadly these tunes are and how mature the songwriting is.  Spellcraft is traditional and grim to the core with some folkish acoustic deviations.  They are extremely effective and deliver an album of frostbitten black metal with Stirpe Obscura.