Band: Pantheon I
Title: Worlds I Create
Label: Candlelight Records
Distribution: PHD
Release date: 27/07/2009
Review: CD

The Oslo-based formation Pantheon I started at the end of 2002 and did release two full length albums before, Atrocity Divine (released in early 2006 by World Chaos Productions) and The Wanderer And His Shadow, the band’s 2007-debut for Candlelight. Throughout the years the band underwent some line-up changes, but I’ve got the impression that Pantheon I are what they want to be: a steady band with enthusiastic and motivated members, willing to perform live.
Anyway, Worlds I Create lasts for forty seven minutes and sort of continues where The Wanderer … ended. Keywords for this Nordic-inspired Black Metal are: melancholic, melodic, varying. The tempo differs from pretty slow to fast, including semi-blasting parts, while the atmosphere has something brutal and sweet at the same time. Worlds I Create isn’t renewing, but the craftsmanship, as well as the acceptable compositions and the interaction between different spheres and tempos lift the whole up a little. Still it does not satisfy me the way many other Norwegian bands do. And yes, the injection of, for example, strings and acoustics aren’t that surprising at all, yet are another surplus.
Acceptable, nothing more and nothing less!

80/100

Ivan Tibos.