The Ugly was formed as a duo in 2004 in order to create a band that honours the ones that put Sweden on the black metal map in the early days of the genre. That intention raises names like Bathory, Dark Funeral, Marduk and Dissection. This actually seems to have gone pretty well since Marduk drummer Fredrik Widigs now also plays with The Ugly. Besides, Decreation was mixed by Devo, current bass player for Marduk.
"Yeah yeah, stop throwing big names around and tell us how this album sounds already'.
Decreation is actually an excellent black metal album in the tradition of the bands I mentioned earlier. Yet, before I dug into the Swedish black metal bands, the first band I thought about was
Immortal. The fierce guitars of The Ugly remind my of the Norse black metal heroes/jokes (delete as appropriate). With lyrical themes of cosmicism, the destruction of the universe and Lucifer, The Ugly came up with a highly convincing album.
After all, all the elements for an excellent black metal release are present and presented to the listener in a wide variation of tearing riffs, blast-beats and brutally screaming vocals. There's
little to no place for atmospheric passages. Instead, The Ugly focuses on intensity and a massive headbanging capacity. In title track 'Decreation (of the Universe)' this results in a stunning black metal song that even has a bit of a sing-along possibility.
So there you have it, another prodigious black metal album from Sweden that truly honours the ancient Scandinavian way of writing and recording extreme music. Yet, as good as the album is on first listen, it grows better and better everytime it meets my speakers. I gave The Ugly the benefit of the doubt in the first minutes but now I see this band growing to the top of the present day scene. This is simply a colossal piece of extreme metal...
Serge