Going Down of the Sun

Viking and Nordic pagan themes are quite common in black metal, which stands to reason when one considers that the Scandinavian countries dominated the death metal/black metal field in the 1990s and 2000s. But this symphonic black metal effort focuses on a subject that one seldom hears about in black metal: the history of the British Empire. And even though Imperial Vengeance was founded by guitarist Charles Hedger (best known for this work with Cradle of Filth, the U.K.'s most famous black metal band), this group doesn't sound very Cradle-like. Musically, At the Going Down of the Sun owes a lot to the symphonic black metal coming out of Norway and Sweden, but again, the subject matter that these Brits address is definitely unusual for black metal — and while a lot of Scandinavia's black metal lyrics are inspired by ancient pre-Christian times, the period that Imperial Vengeance focus on is the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Of course, a lot of people living in the U.K. in the 21st century will cringe when they hear the word "empire"; Britain, like France, Spain, and Russia, learned the hard way that empires are quite costly and have a way of draining a country economically (a lesson that, sadly, was lost on American neocons when their imperialist empire/nation-building fantasies gave the United States record federal deficits, skyrocketing fuel costs, and an anemic currency in the 2000s). But it's probably a mistake to take the album's lyrics too seriously or too literally. Actually, this 2009 release comes across as the work of historians who are fascinated by British history even though they don't necessarily condone every aspect of that history. At the Going Down of the Sun is somewhat uneven, but it's decent more often than not and at least deserves credit for bringing something lyrically different to symphonic black metal.