Hellsaw is one of those bands known for their raw sound. Like most bands do sooner or later, this Austrian black metal seems to have changed their direction with the release of their third full length Cold. The name of this album definitely complements the overall atmosphere: not necessarily that raw, but most certainly cold.

The album starts of with 'A Suicide Journey': a song that instantly activates any kind of depressive feelings you might (unconsciously) experience, especially because of the beautiful, yet heart tearing acoustic intro. The guitar riffs of this track are amazing and Hellsaw has some pretty clever tricks with the small breaks of the constant blastbeats. When listening to 'The Black Death' you realize the rawness of these guys didn’t disappear entirely, because here you can hear some elements comparable to their earlier work.

'Der Harzwald' shows us that Hellsaw has some black and roll groove in them as well, but they also show the capability to let that alternate with some slower cold parts to finally phase it out with, once more, a goose bump activating acoustic piece. These three songs gave me good hope for the remaining tracks of Cold. Unfortunately 'Cold Aeon' gave me a pretty cold shower on that judgment, not the atmospheric kind of shower but the disappointing kind of shower. It’s not that this is a particular bad track, but it doesn’t bring anything new or interesting to the table either and the lyrics are above all inferior due to its simplistic character.

To conclude, Hellsaw put together a nice album, although I believe they should work on an element of which can be said that it’s something typically Hellsaw. Cold is an album I will play again, but only while skipping some of the songs. I hope that by the release of their next record, Hellsaw will have put some more consideration into finding the special element that makes this black metal band worthwhile.