Listening to Thulcandra may bring one to realize the humble beginnings of the Swedish wave of melodic black metal. To this day, Thuldcandra continues to carry the torch in the vein of the genre. In my 2011 review of "Under a Frozen Sun," I have mentioned several bands that have highly influenced the melody and structure of their music. The bands I spoke of are of course Dissection, Unanimated, Sacramentum and Necrophobic.

If you are still unfamiliar with Thulcandra: it is spear headed by Steffen Kummerer, who is also the guitarist and vocalist for Obscura. As a musician, Steffen had obviously improved in "Ascension Lost," especially as a guitarist. A span of 4 years has gone since the last release after all, I am sure he has had some time to improve his playing. There are certainly stronger melodies with finer variety and much longer and more refined solos on this album. It is similar to the previous release in a way that the recording of the vocals sounds almost identical to my ears. The synthesizers and orchestrations give this album more depth and dimensions, something that makes this album preferable.

Thulcandra has become very familiar to me and I can, with confidence, say that they have evolved with each album. At the same time, a thought has always lingered in the back of my mind which believes that they come just a bit short on the delivery of aggression. They don't make metal quite like this nowadays and I give them props for that so don't get me wrong - It is mostly a pleasure to listen to Thulcandra, but, building up my expectations in the beginning of the album just to result in a downfall later on is a typical response. When an album like "Storm of The Light's Bane" exists, it does not make much sense to settle for another version that does less, unless you want something new to listen to.