Black Crucifixion played a fairly seminal role in the development of Finnish black metal and their third full-length Coronation of King Darkness is a shimmering album, stuffed to every last seam and corner with muscular, modern, widescreen black metal that exults in arena-sized riffs. The album paces and stalks a giant auditorium stage, preening and scorning in equal measure. The bottom line? These Finnish OGs have emerged through a number of metamorphoses, and now display the sort of methodically grandiose black/rock sheen shared by latter-day Celtic Frost. Because the human mind yet claws desperately to fit things into associational networks, one also hears echoes of other bands making black metal on a continental scale such as Rotting Christ and Secrets of the Moon, and possibly even the faintest shadow of Ved Buens Ende in the occasional tremulous groan. Which, if anything, is just an argument for the striking alchemy at play on this triumphantly menacing album.
