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Satanic Warmaster is a solo project (and one of many active bands) helmed by a gent called Werewolf. Black Metal is the order of the day and it is of the traditional variety with raspy vocals, tremolo guitars and blasting drums. Fimbulwinter is the band’s fifth full-length effort and it comes roaring out of the gate with "Fimbulwinter’s Spell" forgoing any sort of lead up sound effects or introductory music. The album maintains the sonic assault until track six, "Nuin-Gaer-Faun," when Werewolf slows the pace and creates a more varied atmosphere. I have to admit until this point, Fimbulwinter was a bit of a dull drone but the second part of the album beginning with "Nuin-Gaer-Faun" followed by the standard Black Metal of "Winter’s Hunger" and ending with the atmospheric instrumental "Silent Call of Moon’s Temples" is much more interesting, even if the instrumental is too long by half.

Satanic Warmaster, despite the overly aggressive nature of the band name, use a fair amount of keyboard backing in their compositions so there is a good amount of melody and many of the rough edges that characterize "raw" Black Metal have been smoothed a bit. This puts Satanic Warmaster closer to bands like Immortal which should appeal to both Black Metal fans and Trad Metalists looking for some extreme music that appeals to their tastes. Well done, if not highly original.