Irgalom "A Great Light"

I thought I'd make a specific post about this album as I'm quite surprised by it! 

Past Irgalom albums have been good but nothing truly stood out. I've purchased them all but this album (Pools of Water, the other in this set, is still on its way) is something else! It is still black metal but there are symphonic elements, doom elements, a fair amount of melodic riffs and vocals and even some classic metal riffing. Even the drumming is quite varied. I'm very pleased with this! It's, by quite a stretch, his best work. 

The only disappointing thing is this didn't get nice packaging like the previous full lengths. it just came with a single tray card. The lyrics are often straight scripture and quite uplifting. I guess I'll have to get them off bandcamp. Super excited to get Pools of Water now and see where he went with that. Definitely going to be listened to often, especially as the new Dawnbreaker comes closer to release.

https://visionofgodrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-great-light-black-unblack-metal

Thanks for the good word on the new album, however are the other tracks better than "The Wells Of Salvation"?   
I was not too impressed by that one but it's the only one I have heard so far..

Constantine wrote:Thanks for the good word on the new album, however are the other tracks better than "The Wells Of Salvation"?   
I was not too impressed by that one but it's the only one I have heard so far..

it's definitely not the best track but I do like it. I wonder if the reason it is released is that 8 different fans/friends recorded the spoken word section. Maybe a tribute/thanks to them to release that first?

Hmm, I don't know, I will wait to see how the rest of it is.
I do find that bands sometimes pick very different singles or album lead-off tracks than what I would pick.

Both new albums are very good!  I'm still digesting them but I do think they're some of Irgalom's best stuff yet.

Pools Of Water is not nearly as symphonic as A Great Light FYI but there are one or two songs on there that are in the running for my favorite Irgalom tracks.  I do wish the booklets had lyrics as was mentioned above, but such is life. 

Just a little off-topic: did you mention clean vocals thrown into the mix?

Yup there are quite a bit of clean vocals on these releases!