With 2015 lurking around the corner, I was wondering when I would receive my first taste of the metal to come. Luckily black metal has found its way down a destructive path to my listening ears. Caïna, a band which I have not had the pleasure of listening to before, has come to my attention. More post-black metal than the rawer, earlier work they began with at the band’s start, Setter of Unseen Snares is a short album, but filled with an abundance of darkness and rocking annihilation.

The album begins with some spoken words, and a completely ambient feel to start. The track includes drawn out guitar chords, alongside distant echoing voices, that really set a tremendously evil tone. I am the Flail of the Lord erupts viciously afterwards, with a big sound. It’s not the extremely raw and blast beating drums I was expecting, but it takes on a heavier sound, which just simply rocks in nature. Slower moments do emerge, with clean echoing guitars that drastically change the tempo, but they are done extremely well and do not once feel disconnected from the song.

The main title track, Setter of Unseen Snares, is a much more bombastic track in terms of the drums. But they are not the main focus, as more intricate and attractive guitar chords really shape the track well. Following this track, Vowbound gets more heavy pounding with the riffs, and is quite possibly the gem found on this album. The smart tremolo picking of the guitars towards the end really capture a more epic sound than previous songs had been able to do.

Orphan, the last track on the album is the longest. Clocking in at over 15 minutes (pretty much half the entire length of the album), this song sends the album back into a more ambient state at the beginning. The vocals are clean sounding to start things off, and aren't my favorite style, but work well enough. This is an overall slower track to end things, but is a constantly engrossing and more rock based black metal, with a good set of emotion put forth.

Setter of the Unseen Snares by Caïna is a great album to begin the new year. My only real complaint is how short it ended up being. It definitely left me wanting more, but luckily this prompts me to check out more from the band with this latest listen, and I don’t expect to be disappointed.