Lantern

Lantern

Dimensions

Dark Descent

Finland’s Lantern have been illuminating death metal’s dark passages since 2007. Fresh off 2019’s Lost Paragraphs EP (also on Dark Descent Records), they returns with their third full-length of timeless death metal, Dimensions. Dimensions sees the band continuing on their established path by incorporating melodic lead work and memorable riffs with the distinctive vocals of Necrophilos. It’s the perfect balance between the band’s 2013 debut Below and 2017’s II: Morphosis. The six new tracks here further entrenches the band as one of death metal’s elite.

Lantern

Below

Dark Descent

After letting the dust of their acknowledged 2011 EP settle, Finland's Lantern have returned to deliver a new, far more epic slab of dark and atmospheric death metal performed in the ancient vein. Lantern's debut album Below is a relentless plunge into the unfathomable darkness these compositions are born of, presented in the band's unique style of carefully crafted yet filthy and morbid metal. Compiling seven strongly distinct macabre tales and covering thirty-eight minutes, Below is a definitive statement of a band in top form and demonstrates that death's not dead.

Lantern

Ii: Morphosis

Dark Descent

Since LANTERN's debut full-length ‘Below’ perfectly got the zeitgeist of the mid-10’s dark and arcane DM revival DARK DESCENT RECORDS has almost become synonymous for, it would have made perfect sense for those Finns to simply so to speak return to very same cave and lock themselves up down there with no heat nor light for two weeks straight to conjure the same type of pitch black music. But this is where you draw the line in between those happy with their little niche and the real artists, destined to expand their horizon no matter what… Fear not, ‘II – Morphosis’ isn’t trying to reach for the light either and still reeks of the ancient metal ov death foul stench. And even if they’ve now officially integrated the three extra members the initial duo had with them since 2011 for live activities and recorded it as a five piece, there’s still here a palpable sense of obscurity throughout those nine songs, as if being seen through a veiled curtain. But many actually will probably actually be quite surprised by how articulate but also strangely melodic the ‘new’ LANTERN is. While a track like “Cleansing of the Air” or the epic instrumental “Necrotic Epiphanies” carry a strong thrash influence that can also be found in Necrophilos’ scruffy vocals, the album is first and foremost packed with twisted riffs that spiral on and off that pierce through the thick fog it conjures like razors. But no matter how hectic the whole thing...