(Review written for Metal Archives by VileRancour, August 4th, 2002)

I suppose there are those out there who harbor the notion that Ildjarn (the individual) can only be good for one thing - that being, of course, the organic ambient chaotic ultrafast necro-black war noise of his eponymous project. But being one of the most unique - and surely most deranged - Norwegian minds around, this album proves he has other tricks up his sleeve, namely the organic ambient chaotic ultrafast necro-black war noise of Sort Vokter, a different beast altogether. This is way more than just "Ildjarn with keyboards". The music is a fast, eerie, bass-dominated hypnotic swirl with machine-programmed drums, making for a precise, monomaniacal, deranged attack; a forest troll lurching at you with his arms thrust forth, drooling maniacally, his head lolling from side to side in a frenzied trance. The guitar is alchemically distilled into an upper-register hiss, a deliberatley menacing blur that bleeds chaos from above on the entire scene; the keyboards play wickedly haunting, echoing, sometimes downright beautiful melodies, evoking the cold sunrise glimpsed from between the fir leaves while you're dying inside a trap in the snowy ground. Having read these descriptions, bear in mind that this release is far, far removed from any sort of Norsecore or gothic (the production alone, rawer than a wolf's bite wound gone infected, is enough to deter those who seek that kind of garbage); it is essential in the sense that it is a perfect manifestation of the "Beyond Good and Evil" black metal philosophy. The fuzzy, harmonious melodies merge with the relentless, demented bloodlust of the rhythm section, exchanging roles time and time again, and when the entire composition is brought to an end with the amazing ambient closing track, you will have witnessed nature itself put to music. And Natur ist Krieg - this is black metal of the highest order.