Just when Before Time rips into the meat of the song propelled by its relentless double bass drumming I had a glimmer of hope and excitement that Blackwinds can rise above the masses in the overpopulated Norsecore crowd. Alas, my hopes were promptly dashed as Flesh Inferno is nothing but rehashed tired ideas. The double bass of Before Time is replaced by just as relentless blastbeat of Enter the Pandemonium, and on and on the feat continues, for 10 boring tracks. Same stale rhythmic structures, some rusty razor-like guitar riffs, same melodies delivered via frozen keyboards and synth whiffs recycled since the days of Storm of the Light’s Bane. Blackwinds is, oh, only about 12 years too late to be ground-breaking. Yet, if you want a bit more melodic Marduk with keyboards, please, read on.

Revolutionary aspect not a must for the record to be interesting, Blackwinds fail to make Flesh Inferno captivating. All these blistering tempos and blackened thrash riffs simply fail to attract attention. The songs on Flesh Inferno are way too long, their length even further exacerbated by their sameness. All these short “mystical” breaks in action (Enter the Pandemonium), whipping effects in the title track or slowing things down, trying a little melody (Crimson Thirst), are simply not working. There are a few rising moments in Seraphim Ephemereal and an interesting melody in Plague Bringer just before the spoken vocals pop in, but it is nowhere near enough to save this record. Band tightness and solid musicianship alone is not going to convince me.

Uncompromising in the case of Blackwinds stands for limited. Arriving in the same package from Regain, Flesh Inferno sitting next to Lord Belial’s latest The Black Curse, it could not rub off any of the latter inventiveness. Blackwinds are somehow related/share members with Setherial, and given that I could not sit through Setherial’s Death Triumphant, it was almost predestined for Flesh Inferno to disappoint mightily. Usually I am very thorough with my research on bands, so excuse me if the information is lacking, but consider me lazy here as some source of payback for the delivered dullness. Why do research if I am absolutely certain I am not going to pick this stuff up again.