Album opener "Sun I Call" kicks off as a flowing Jan Garbarek tune and develops into a glorious hymn-like six-minute stunner. But just when you thought were going from good to great in Solefald's camp comes "Survival of the Outlaw", with annoying vocal rasp and guitar chugging intertwined with spectacularly out-of-tune vocals and a melody here and there. What's worse, it goes on like that for one more track, then swings back into an already worn out blend of post-black metal, melodramatic singing, violins in the background and _Streets_-era Savatage rock opera atmosphere.

What _Red for Fire_ lacks, like all its predecessors, is -- and I'll dare say it once more -- consistency. Granted, it sounds interesting; but then again, it sounds like a whole lot of patches sewn together. As you may have already guessed, the end is perplexing as hell: after the stunningly long and fairly good "Crater of the Valkyries" and "Sun I Called", you get treated to the relaxing sound of splashing waves and an old Norseman telling his tale in Norwegian (or is that Icelandic?) for five and a half minutes. Go figure.