Recalling fellow black metal acts like Altar of Plagues and Obolus, Vattnet Viskar's new-ish self-titled EP is a winner. An atmospheric, dissonant winner. Considering it contains three songs stretched over 27 minutes, it's a wonder how tightly wound the songs turned out. Yeah, the name doesn't exactly roll off the song, but the tunes are good.

"Weakness" kicks of the EP with an extended intro featuring otherworldly whispering and church bells. Ya know, creepy metal shit. But then the guitar squalls come in. And then noise bleeds through the speakers. And then everything starts to grind the air. There's an almost machine-like quality to the Vattnet Viskar attacks the song.

"Intention Oblivion," in addition to having a totally metal title, continues the assault. Despite being longer, it drops the whole drawn out intro thing in favor of more bashing and/or crashing. It's beautiful. Then "Barren Earth" comes in and decimates. Pretty darn epic at 13-and-a-half minutes in length, this track brings in elements of sludge and Americana, opening with acoustic guitars before bringing on the metals. It culminates in an extended drum solo before the whole band just throws everything into the instrumentation. By the final four minutes, Vattnet Viskar achieves a perfect breakdown, delivering on all the terrible promise in the title. This song is the centerpiece of the band's live show.

With a full-length on the way next year via Century Media, Vattnet Viskar is hopefully a sign of even better (by which I mean terrible and dark) things to come.