Review written by Glenn “Terra Shredder” Van Bockstaele.

Kaamos Warriors is a Finnish melodic black metal band formed in 2018. “Ikuisen Talven Sarastus” is their debut full length, released and sent to us by Finnish record label Inverse Records.

The album opens with “Kaamos Warriors” a short black metal song that shows what Kaamos Warriors is all about, whispering and hissing vocals, orchestral chants, melodic guitars and drums blasting in the background. The whole tune has a mysterious, almost relaxing feel to it. Next up is “Talventuoja,” another quick track but with more emphasis on pounding drum beats and harsher vocals as well as being the first track on the album with Finnish lyrics. This gives the song a nice pagan feel with vocalist Mikko acting as some kind of shaman chanting his way through the song.

Then we have “Winter Eternal,” a chilling tune dominated by echoing guitar melodies, marching drum beats and a few grunt lines. Track 4 is “Aaveet” and has a more straight forward melodic black metal vibe and once again the Finnish lyrics add to the dark cinematic atmosphere of this song and album as a whole. The next track, “Immortals,” clocks in at 4 minutes and is one of the longest songs on this release. Despite the longer runtime and slower pace, this tune isn’t much different compared to the album’s other tracks. This song is more of a slow-burner and one perfectly suitable to sit down, close your eyes and dream away.

Next up is “Tyhjyys,” a slower and heavier track compared to the rest of the release, this song retains a lot of Kaamos Warriors’ regular traits but injects it with a dose of dreary doom metal. Things speed up again with the next track, “Secrets Of Stars,” just another smoothly paced melodic black metal tune. Then we have the album's title track finale, “Ikuisen Talven Sarastus.” It starts with some gentle atmospheric tunes, then the heavy guitars takes over and the song becomes a blend of slow doom metal riffs with black metal vocals, all the while maintaining a huge sense of melody and smoothness. A perfect ending to an overall impressive debut.

I’ve got to say that I really liked this first outing of Kaamos Warriors. This whole release breathes a dark and mysterious Scandinavian winter atmosphere that feels intimate and soothing yet also grim and intimidating. The band smoothly mixes melody, black, orchestral and doom metal to great effect. I feel that we’re going to hear many more great things from these two men in the future. Here’s the “Winter Eternal” single!