Delayed only a little, the debut album from In Aphelion more than lives up to the promise shown on last year's Luciferian Age EP. Featuring members of Necrophobic and Cryptosis, the three-piece play a form of melodic black metal that's familiar but has enough of a tech-thrash edge to mark it out, along with songwriting chops aplenty. A widdlier version of Watain, if you still need convincing, and good at it; coming over strongly with the galloping opener World Serpent (Devourer of Dreams) not just with both melodic and thrashier riffing but a strong sense of atmosphere, too. That's carried into Draugr and Luciferian Age (the same songs as from the EP) and enjoyably speedy cuts like Let the Beast Run Wild. The band balance the various strands that go into their DNA extremely well, thrash riffs being met with blackened leads, solos, and so on, and it makes for a consistently enjoyable set of songs.

This can mean some songs are better than others, inevitable on a near-hour-long album. Sometimes the band come a little close to falling into the trap of making songs longer for the sake of it; there's no reason that This Night Seems Endless has to try and live up to its name by dragging things out for over seven minutes, for instance. Yet the meat and bones of the track are excellent, mixing grooviness and a melodic touch well enough with a lengthy middle solo section that throws in Bathory-esque grandeur to great enough results that it becomes a highlight regardless of how stretched it may be. And the second half of the album doesn't skimp on quality, the compelling likes of The Origin having an intensely melodic gallop that keeps your ears attuned and that works well alongside thrashier cuts such as Sorrow Fire and Hate. You could complain a little at the lack of general originality yet so deliciously enjoyable is the songwriting here, let alone how sharp the instrumentation (He Who Saw the Abyss is worth the price of entry alone for its lead guitar) that criticism is entirely churlish. For a kind of supergroup to be making metal this easily enjoyable is more than enough, and In Aphelion will delight any black metal ear that appreciates a good riff or solo.