Swedes Myronath are perhaps most notable because they number amongst their legion former Amon Amarth/Therion/A Canorous Quintet drummer Fredrik Andersson; Djevelkraft is their second full length (although their debut didn’t feature Andersson), and sees the band honing their decidedly cold, hate-filled black metal chops to a razor-sharp, deadly point.

In short, if names like Dark Funeral, Dissection and Necrophobic get your black heart pumping just a little faster, then there’s nothing on this raging, ranting beast of an album that your ears won’t derive some sort of misanthropic joy from. The band are still finding their feet in terms of originality and the ability to write music with real staying power – you’ll enjoy all the songs ‘in the moment’, but the hooks and earworms generally aren’t strong enough to stay in the brain at this point – but there’s enough meat on the bones to justify getting stuck in repeatedly.

She Who Dwells In Flames is a ripsnorter of a track, but standout cut for this reviewer is the excellent The Sword of Satan; here the band mix things up just enough by way of acoustic intros and outros to pique the interest; as ever, when the electric guitars and drums come to full fruition you get just that little bit more impact to them thanks to the ‘quiet’ beginning.

Draugûl alumnus Hellcommander Vargblod – possibly the best name in the entire metal universe at the moment – contributes some fine bass work to compliment his broken glass gargle/nail through the foot shriek style of vocalising, and you know you can rely on Andersson to keep up his end of the bargain, drum wise; guitarists Bjarkan and Myrkheim offer solidity in excelsis in the six string department, meaning that everything, even an epic stomper like Evigt Mörker, is delivered with the kind of grim-face professionalism you’d expect from scene vetErans such as the ones assembled here. If that sounds a bit ‘more perspiration than inspiration’ you wouldn’t be too far off the mark, but the fact of the matter is that, after two albums this band has now carved it’s niche and defined it’s sound – I have no doubt that album number three will be, as we say in the industry, a real humdinger…

Djevelkraft releases on June 4th.