I found myself quite surprised when I first had a short listen to "Lord Of Beneath" and was captured by it to the extent of feeling the need to write a review about it. The magic of Unlord has passed away a bit over the years, now that it`s no mystery anymore where they come from (Amsterdam), but their musical skills have only developed over the last two albums.

After the obligatory moody and light-classical intro, the real work starts. Unlord manages to create musical havoc with a shredding guitarsound and matching shredding vocals (which are, I might say, quite intelligible, especially for a blackmetal band). The drums are mixed perfectly into the sound, creating a layer of frenzied pounds and blasts to support the music. But in all it`s fury and aggression, a few good listens reveal that plenty of the songs are basically very midtempo or even downtempo - it`s just the drumming that makes it sound otherwise.

The major advantage of this mid/downtempo layer, is that the refrains and the melodies are much stronger and keep sticking to your brain for a longer period of time than I am used to from the black scene.

In many ways, Unlord can be compared to their Norwegian companions such as Immortal; with the same approach and in most cases the same lyrical content they operate within the same niche and will appeal to the same fans. Therefore I can highly recommend "Lord Of Beneath" to any serious fan of this kind of aggro-black. It`s a shame that the press release states that this album is their last, because I would have gladly heard more of them.