Sarke is the band of Thomas Bergli, alias Sarke (Tulus, Khold, ex-Old Man's Child). In 2009 he formed this band together with vocalist Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) and Anders Hunstad (keyboards). After their debut 'Vorunah', this is their second release. On this album Steinar Gundersen (Spiral Architect, Satyricon) and Cyrus (Susperia, Dimmu Borgir) have joined them on guitar and Asgeir Mickelson (Spiral Architect, ex-Borknagar) takes care of the drums.
With all these experienced musicians the only thing that can go wrong is bad song-writing. But that isn't the case on this album. The songs are all well written and rather easy to listen to. The songs have a black-metal base with thrash riffs and a very rocking sound. Add 70’s sounding grooves and some doom elements and you get the picture. The songs are rather riff based and urge you to bang your head. The vocals of Nocturno are lower than we are used to from him in his band Darktrone; they are raw but quite understandable. The band that enters my mind the most is early Celtic Frost. But also Mayhem, Moorhead, Kreator, Black Sabbath and Candlemass can be added. I'm not really sure if the keys add something to the total picture and perhaps the songs wouldn't have been worse without them. But I guess that is just a matter of taste again.
The band or should we say Sarke shows that there is progression compared to the debut and if he can continue this on the third album, then we can surely not ignore this band anymore.
