It was twenty years ago that Satyricon had released their masterpiece Nemesis Divina. Most would agree that not only is Nemesis Divina one of their best albums (if not the best), but that it is also one of the best Black Metal albums to ever be recorded. To celebrate it’s twentieth anniversary, Satyricon have decide to release Nemesis Divina remastered through Century Media Records. Usually I’m rather iffy when it comes to a “remastered” release due to the fact that there is not much of a difference and in the end it feels more like a cash grab than anything.oncert. That would definitely be money well spend to attend that performance.

I would use the term remastered lightly with this release. While yes there is definitely more clarity to the music I wouldn’t say it’s much of an improvement. In fact at times you would really have to listen to notice any difference at all. To me it feels more like a re-release than a remastered edition, which comes right back to my point that it feels more of like a cash grab. If I had to pick the most notable tweak would be that on the original album, around the 2:36 mark of “The Dawn of A New Age” there is the sound of a sword being sheathed. The new remastered release has removed that sound effect. You could argue that it was a pointless addition in the first place. Problem is when you listen to a song so many times over twenty years and have grown used to it, it really throws you off to not hear it.

The remastered Nemesis Divina in my opinion could possibly cause more disappointment than Satyricon would hope for. After their self-titled release in 2013, a decently large portion of fans are very reminiscent of their earlier sound such as Nemesis Divina. This release will just further those fans to hoping for a return to form. I am also assuming nearly all fans of Satyricon already own this album unless they’ve been living under a rock. If you already own Nemesis Divina then I don‘t believe you need this release unless you want to shell out the dough for a slight improvement. Especially if you’re one of those serious Black Metal fans that favor a more poor production quality much like early 1990’s Norwegian Black Metal.

I feel Satyricon should jump on the recent bandwagon and celebrate the twentieth anniversary by playing Nemesis Divina in its entirety in concert. That would definitely be money well spend to attend that performance.

6.0 / 10

DEREK RIX

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