After bowling me (and many readers!) over with their last album, 2010’s masterful Procella Vadens, it’s been hard not to eagerly anticipate this German duo’s return and expect something even better. And, well, they’ve delivered. Meadows of Nostalgia may lack the sheer grandiosity of Procella Vadens’ artwork, but the air of nostalgic sorrow that the artwork here gives is shared by the music. It’s something of a sequel in terms of the music itself, sharing the epic melodic rise and fall of the previous album but definitely moving onwards and attempting new things. After the pleasant acoustic ambience of intro Durch das tor…, first song proper Brigobannis shows that Imperium Dekadenz are champing at the bit as they create a stunning opener, moving from the pure blackened stomp of the beginning to something more atmospheric and melodic. The sampled marching troops towards the end are a nice touch, adding a martial vibe with the backing vocal chanting, and although some of the transitions in the track can be a little jarring, it does serve to keep you on your toes, free of the hypnotic tug of the riffs…

That’d be a bad thing on some albums, but Imperium Dekadenz make up for it with the following ten minuter of Aue der Nostalgie, which builds up majestically with ambient riffing and breaks it down with surprisingly technical drum work. The drumming isn’t always as perfect as that, sadly, often seeming to be too slow for the music when some blastbeats would work wonders – yet as it is, it’s only really a problem if you focus on it, as the brilliant guitars are most definitely the highlight, here and elsewhere. Ave Danuvi’s slow, almost funereal march is almost ecclesiastical, particularly once the choirs raise their voice, while in contrast Aura Silvae seems more hopeful.

What links the two, and indeed every track on the album, from the acoustic strums of interlude Memoria to the Burzumic keyboard plinks of Der Unweg is the sheer feeling of quality and classiness. Meadows of Nostalgia is high-class black metal, with the spirit of the forest and the mountains in its veins rather than the basement or the graveyard. The likes of Striga, with its initial pounding doomy riffs that launch into an epic charge, have almost a sneer to them, looking down on the listener as the grandiose sounds ring out; this band know that they’re a step above from the crowd, and relish in it. That’s good news for black metal fans, who appreciate a bit of artistic arrogance in a genre that is pretty much built on it. And this is an excellent album from a band that is consistently producing top-class music, and seems to be going from strength to strength. Even with two past albums that I’ve yet to explore from Imperium Dekadenz, waiting three years for a new album will be very hard… Here’s hoping we don’t have to.