SCHEITAN - Travelling In Ancient Times LP (Black Vinyl)
300 hand-numbered copies, including 8-pages booklet.
The Swedish black metal band Scheitan originates from the city of Lulea, a pretty nice and quiet town located in the far north of the Swedish kingdom, much known for its beautiful nature and frozen winters. I believe that this band was influenced by their entourage, the amazing nature surrounding them and the cold long winters that attack them. You can obviously feel that in their music, heavily atmospheric and cold. This full length titled Travelling in Ancient Times, contains only 8 tracks scoring 34 minutes of play. The production of this release is good enough, keeping in mind that this is a mid-90’s release.
The musicianship is remarkable in many aspects, these guys proved that they are very talented on doing something not boring and redundant. This is not your average black metal album, as it is well constructed, coherent and unique. The vocals here are well done, they are harsh and raspy that include from time to time some kick-ass screams. I actually liked the performance of Lotta Hogberg in the track Devastated Heaven, the best unique example of what I’m talking about here. Although I couldn’t hear any occasional soft vocals, maybe due to the purely ferocious approach the band intended to carry with this release.
The guitars are very melodic, and some outstanding riffs appear here. There are no much solos around, only one occurs on Portals of Might, possibly the best song on this album. I would also like to mention the beautiful acoustic parts in the same song, they left some good impressions on me and made me wish to have more acoustic episodes in this release. The unique musicianship here continues with the drums’ solid work, as they range from blast beats to mid-paced and sometimes slow rhythmic beats. The bass lines mostly follow the guitars work and they blend pretty well. Finally, to give the keyboard its merit, although they are mostly in the background they provide this cold menacing atmosphere. Some tracks can lack keyboards work, but when they are there they add some nice emotional feelings around; December at Fullmoon, Portals of Might and Riding the Icewinds are some good examples.
This is a very good black metal release in all aspects, anyone who likes to explore and listen to hidden gems should try this one. You have to give it a chance. I’m not familiar with their later releases but as far as I know, they switched their sound from black metal to Death’N’roll. This is definitely going to stay as one the best they produced. Get your hands on this well done melodic black metal music, it will certainly enrich your music-listening experience.