The Shepherd and the Hounds of Hell’s sound takes a little bit to get used to. It’s highly thin and plastic. We’re mostly talking about the drums, which don’t sound real in the least, despite the claims that it’s an actual drummer playing them. But the production overall has little low end to speak of.

But this is part of what makes this album charming. That and the songs are awesome and, even better yet, stand out from each other.

The fake-sounding drums ironically have life, and their extreme perfection provides tasty articulation to the songs’ arrangements. The music is memorable, catchy, and the songs have character.

The style is a little like black metal if it went a Rhapsody power metal route: fast, clear, a little showy, kind of anthemic, sort of heavy metal-riff oriented.

No small part of the album’s delight are Pest’s vocals. Pest will always be a black metal darling from his work with Gorgoroth, and particularly Under the Sign of Hell, in which his on-fire harsh vocals are peppered with WTF falsetto cleans which would be cringeworthy if they didn’t rule so much.

Here, there are fewer effects on his voice, which makes his harsh vocals more immediate and less ambient. Pest’s approach to cleans is different, but the few clean sections are none the less remarkable in how gross and filthy they feel in his nasal, creepy delivery. We’re not sure which guy in the album band photo Pest is, but it sounds like the kind of vocals a slimy, leering, shirtless guy with shiny leather pants would make. Perfect.

The Shepherd and the Hounds of Hell definitely has some element of cheesy, gross lechery, from song titles like "Ride the Whore," to the grody band photos, to the laughable, embarassing cover art. But within, the music displays strokes of genius, with unique songs, a depth of variety of song approaches, interestingly flawed sound, and exciting, uncommon, well-constructed music. This is a hidden classic.