Vanmakt
Ad Luciferi Regnum

May 2009
Released: 2009, Pulverised Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Satan loves their children. Satan loves to rape, kill and destroy. Satan is unholy and Satan is the almighty. It´s also reported that Satan also loves Vanmakt, this Karlskrona-based melodic black metal band coming from Sweden.



Vanmakt plays a lightning-fast, blazing, satanic and somewhat hysteric black metal, added with lots of melodies and a crystal-clear production that undoubtedly draws some justified comparisons to their countrymen Dark Funeral, both music as well as lyric-wise. However, whereas Dark Funeral´s satanic black metal approach has found the shortest road to Armageddon, Vanmakt have added more different layers (some well-carried, slow acoustic passages, female vocals, etc.) into their own melodic and breath-takingly fast black metal assaults in order to keep things just a bit more interesting and more challenging within their stuff. However, most of the time they sound like they are into creating chaos and havoc through their songs ´til their last breath, and that may be something that could possible turn some heads away from their stuff in the long run. They do their fast stuff really well though, jumbling up some really memorable and catchy melodies into the middle of their madly raging (but controlled) outbursts of melodic and well-produced black metal. Liedheim on drums, reaches some inhuman and machine-like levels by his hyper-fast drum work. That guy must be at least half robot, half man, I think.



Vanmakt will undoubtedly please most of the fans of fast, satanic and melodic Swedish black metal (Dark Funeral fans especially - take note!). They do their thing really well, but in the same breath it must be said they are not the first ones on this all-things-blackened-filled road to burn some churches down. Very impressive album from them nevertheless.