Pest, the Swedish band, is one of the newer signings of Germany's No Colours label. Like almost every other black metal band these days, Pest does not innovate the genre while delivering the trademarks of raw black metal within a slow and melancholic framework, with strong vocals, a raw but surprisingly powerful sound, and riffs and melodies that fortunately do not sound overly familiar. _Daudefaerd_ is not the ultra-aggressive, Darkthrone inspired kind of material some might be expecting from Pest. Instead it's much closer to, for example, the material on Satanic Warmaster's _Black Katharsis_ EP, as far the general mood is concerned. _Daudefaerd_ is a slowly flowing piece which consists of three major themes and riffs which get delivered and combined at epic length with a couple of slight alterations, twists and turns. Never does it sound as if shorter songs were just combined to create a single long track, and it succeeds in wrapping the listener in a shroud of melancholy and sadness. A positive surprise, and from now on Pest are on my list of bands which I believe might have an ace or two up their sleeve. Let's hope they already deal it out on the next full-length.
