Words like ‘war’,’pagan’ and ‘hate’ have been associated with Black Metal for a long time. Provided with such a narrow lyrical base, it often takes quite a lot of skill to come up with sustainable theme based ideologies .However it takes a lot more imagination and creativity to spawn music that would justify these themes. Poland’s Graveland has been excelling in this difficult art almost since its inception.

The most striking aspect of each and every darken composition is the magnificently vivid description of the medieval world, especially war. Symbolic paganism prevalent so boldly in the well crafted lyrics finds expression in a delicious combination of linear and ambient burzumesque black metal and epic folk melodies. The majestic, mighty yet grim and cold atmosphere captivates the listener as tonal melodic solos fuse into distinctively simple yet catchy guitar grooves. This is graveland’s holy war against intruding forces of Christianity and you are nothing but a soldier to fight for him till death

Fire chariot of destruction is pretty much an evolved version of the progressive graveland sound heard first in the 1995 masterpiece thousand swords. The overall structure and flow are predictable, but with a greater professional feel. All classical graveland elements are there pounding war drums, hate filled grunts, doomy atmospheric keyboards, raw double bass and fast riffage. There is a dark and sinister undertone to almost all tracks but this surprisingly gives a rather heroic and chivalrous feel to the music. In a way reminiscent of the Swedish legends bathory by the almost impossible merger of melancholy and aggression.

Although the CD can boast of containing 8 gems of masterful artistry, a few tracks like River of Tears, Creator and Destroyer, Dance of Axes and Swords and Motherland stand out. There has been a definite effort to make this release sound faster and heavier. Sticking my neck out I dare say that this is one of the finest black metal release yet of the 21st century. Waste no more time and buy this album at once before the chariot burns everything to ground.