Black metal and Satan. Two tastes that go great together and which, some would argue, are completely inseparable. Of course, you have bands that love Satan, and then you have bands that love Satan. Watain falls into this latter category, a fact made readily apparent by their latest album Sworn to the Dark.

Watain is a Swedish group, consisting of three members; there are no keyboards here. Their sound, however, is far from minimalistic, featuring a semi-melodic style not unlike that of Dissection. In fact, every time I hear part of "Storm of the Antichrist", I want to insert the lyrics to "Storm of the Light's Bane", and not just because the titles are similar. Unlike this most seminal of Swedish black metal ensembles, however, Watain's songs are generally fairly uniform throughout, lacking the dramatic tempo and style changes found in the songs on Storm of the Light's Bane. This is not necessarily a strike against them, though; Dissection's songs could become fairly predictable and gimmicky, a problem which Watain sidesteps by not doing anything that would lead one to expect unpredictability. The songs are not completely uniform however. There is some variety between the different pieces in terms of tempo and riff style and certainly, while no elements of the songs are incredibly catchy, they do not blend together on listening as some albums are prone to do.

Beyond their general sound, one aspect of their music that bears particular mention is the vocal style: it is easily one of the clearest I've heard in black metal, sounding more like something you might hear in, say, thrash. I can understand most of the lyrics without any difficulty, which means that they actually affect my enjoyment of the songs. For the most part, the lyrics are fairly decent. As I mentioned earlier, though, Watain adores Satan and this comes through very clearly in their lyrics. They almost resemble those of Christian hymns in their level of devotion, with Lucifer replacing God, a factor especially noticeable in "The Light That Burns the Sun". I'm not entirely in favor of this; slavish devotion is not something I support, regardless of whether it is to the Christian God or his antithesis. Thankfully, the songs reach this level of obnoxiousness in only a couple of songs. In contrast, "Stellarvore", one of my favorite songs on the album, has a pleasantly Cthulhu-esque vibe to it and is reasonably well-written.

Regardless of my opinions of their lyrical content, the songs are very much hit or miss for me, generally depending on my mood rather than the individual song. When I'm up for something a bit more melodic and rock influenced, this album works reasonably well; when I'm not, I have a difficult time listening to it. Overall, I lean more towards the like side, and if you're a fan of Dissection, you most certainly will as well. On the other hand, if you think Dissection is a perversion of black metal art, you'll want to stay well away from this one; after all, it has choruses.