France’s Season Of Mist has acquired a number of promising artists,but Norway’s Bloodthorn are hands down the flagship band on the label! the trepidation of Armageddon has arrived in the form of Onwards Into Battle, a mid-tempoed yet searing, 8 track premonition of what misery is to befall the human race. Bloodthorn are the masters of sculpting subtle synth textures,skillfully summoning them to empower significant guitar rhythms and meaningful solos,taking great care not to crush the music below with their presence like so many bands have done before them. Within the confines of a gloomy plod, Bloodthorn create a lot of ingenuity and interesting melodies into these tracks,one moment presenting a deathly deep buzz within their guitar sound,the next exploring highly developed classical influences with operatic singing,acoustic guitars and airy synth lines as on "Dead Silence",that teleport our thoughts back to a century where running a sword through an opponents flesh was music created by the warring kind. the vocalist further scars the album with embattled fury,lashing out with a tortured black metal snarl that digs into the compositions with passionate aggression.Successfully embracing various styles of metal influences and a deep clear production to achieve their hope for apocalyptic majesty,Bloodthorn’s "Onwards Into Battle" is the type of release that divulges something new every time it is played.Much promise can be found in the workings of this Norwegian band,definitely a cd to track down and revere as one of the more inspired offerings from the blackened death metal realm!!!