Immortal is down to a single bandmember these days, Demonaz. That makes it relevant to wonder if this is really an Immortal album or if it is in fact a Demonaz solo album? Musically it sounds a bit like both. 

Demonaz' solo album "March of the Norse" [2011] had much of a Viking March sound to it - like Vikings marching down the ice roads towards their longboats, on their way to go and spread some decent Scandinavian culture to the cultureless Neanderthals that populated the rest of the World back then.

This new Immortal album has a few thundering chaos tunes like "War Against All" and "Thunders Of Darkness", but it also has a lot of songs that sounds like Demonaz' first solo album. Hell, the album cover even looks like a Demonaz cover.

Demonaz used to write most of the Immortal lyrics, so nothing is changed there. It deals with typical Immortal themes like "No Sun" and "Blashyrkh". It has the trademark Immortal melodic guitar breaks that Abbath also still uses a lot in his songs. There is even a single instrumental track "Nordlandihr" that again sounds like it was lifted off of a Demonaz solo record.

The album finishes very strongly with the songs "Immortal" and "Blashyrkh My Throne". Again it is more Demonaz than Immortal, but it's solid ice cold metal tunes and I like it a lot.

"The battle of all is soon to begin
Defending the honor of blood till the end
Gods don't reckon men"

Some reviewers may complain that this music is too catchy and not as chaotic and raw as the previous album "Northern Chaos Gods" [2018]. The fact is however that this new "War Against All" album has way better songs than the previous album, and I am 100% certain that I will play this one many times in the future, while I rarely ever listen to "Northern Chaos Gods". Immortal has had accessible, melodic and catchy elements for many years now. It's simply how they sound best. Black Metal doesn't always have to be so damn complicated or inaccessible.

Immortal these days is very much a Demonaz spin-off project, but that's not so bad. Man, I do wish Abbath and Demonaz would join forces again though... They are pretty strong when they are apart, but together they were an ice cold Immortal force of awesomeness.