Following his departure from Finnish legends Sentenced, Taneli Jarva gathered together some old friends and formed a band that would continue the direction that Sentenced had been taking. North From Here and Amok were both solid — Amok considered the Sentenced classic among some — they were raw but supremely satisfying Melodic Death 'n' Roll. Sentenced would go on their own successful path of course, with their new gothic, dark metal direction, and a lead singer more suited for its smoother, frostier sound.
Initially, The Black League followed that Melodic Death path, with decidedly more Rock than Death, Ichor being the masterpiece while Utopia A.D. seemed to bear the strain of a genre that just didn't have any staying power or avenues of creativity. Their third album, Man's Ruin Revisited, showed that they recognized a change had to be made and they essentially lopped off the Melodic Death portion of their sound and amped up the Rock 'n' Roll portion into a subterfuge of metal that ran off giant biker metal bands like Motorhead, latter day Entombed, AC/DC, and even some Ted Nugent, with his crunchy up-tempo style riffage thrown in to seal the deal. Man's Ruin Revisited was an excellent album, full of really good ideas, and an equally good retro mixture of sounds cleaned up and dragged through new dirt and grease to create a fantastic up-to-date feel.
Following up that album shouldn't be as difficult, as this style should not be as restrictive as their previous sound was; Melodic Death does give some leeway but go too far one way you get Thrash, and too far the other way, you get straight up Death or Hardcore. So, like I mentioned earlier, they just cut all that out completely. Now, it is just straight up bar brawlin,' beer chuggin,' skirt chasin,' sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. And it is good, really good.
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