Second album from these obscure, grim black metallers. While not well-known, we really dug their debut ("Nattestid....") as an extremely well-executed slice of true black metal in the classic tradition, and this disc offers more of Taake's majestic dark-forest hymns. The songwriting operates within genre norms, but with much interest and variety, employing raspy lead vocals, clean choruses, fast parts, slow parts, strong melodies, and diverse instrumentation. They make use of piano and even jaw harp! The "boing boing" of that in the album's third track may seem humorous, but is really unsettling.
Runic warriors of rock n' roll, Taake join the likes of Kvist, Khold, Nagelfar, Potentiam, and Keep of Kalessin in the ranks of AQ-fave black metal acts that lack the hype of the Emperors and Dimmu Borgirs of the world, but are equally worthy of your attention. So, this album gets a definite thumbs up from AQ's own runic warriors Allan and Andee. It's one they'd play for curious and open-minded non-black-metal fan friends. Meanwhile, black-metal otaku, get this while you wait for the new Satyricon.
In a recent show of photography by Peter Beste devoted to Norwegian black metallers, we were happy to see Taake's Doedsjarl Hoest pictured alongside better known musicans from bands like Immortal, Enslaved and Carpathian Forest. Hoest and Taake certainly deserve to be in such company, and they're definitely one of the current Norwegian bands really keeping the flame of blackened Viking metal flickering. We've been fans of these runic warriors ever since their debut Nattestid... in 1999, getting even more into 'em when their second album ...Bjoergvin... came out three years ago, and now are excited that the third installment in the Taake trilogy, ...Doedskvad, is at last here! (Those other two, by the way, seem to have gone out of print.)
...Doedskvad surely equals its predecessors, upholding tradition (theirs, and that of cold, grim black metal in general) by offering up some seriously epic rasp n' riffage that's mostly majestically midpaced but sometimes thrashes forward at a headbanging, drums-blasting gallop. Really excellent, really cult. Think something along the lines of older Enslaved, with the torched cathedral architecture of Weakling and some Cradle of Filthiness in the vocals. And it should be mentioned that Hoest and comrades Lava, Corax and Mord are joined by a slew of guests, including Helvestekommandant Nattefrost of Carpathian Forest, Taipan of Orcustus and someone amazingly (or amazingly stupidly) named "Discomforter"!
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A necro ep indeed!
Latest full length from this long running Norwegian one man black metal horde, whose sound has remained relatively unchanged throughout his nearly two decades of buzzing and blasting, if anything the sound of his records has just gotten better, but essentially Noregs Vaapen is another fantastic disc of frantic and frenzied blasting blackness, killer riffing, bad ass drumming, shrieked vox, some samples here and there, lots of guests this time around: Nocturno Culto, Attila Csihar, Demonaz and a bunch of others, but really it's Hoest's show, and always has been, his vision and sonic representation thereof unwavering, gloriously grim, his black buzz infused with plenty of classic metal riffing which makes the sound, and this record in particular, heavy and hooky and the sort of blackness we can never ever get tired of.
Oh, and did we mention the banjo solo? Yep, the only truly bizarre moment on the record, in a song that already might be the best of the bunch, with some awesome guitar trills and some wicked riffs, but then a little over halfway through, the banjo comes in, and besides sounding totally bizarre, it's also utterly genius, and after the shock of first hearing it, it suddenly sounds PERFECT and you wonder why every song doesn't have banjo, or every record, or every black metal band, and when the banjo drops out, you'll have to fight the urge to skip back and hear it again with every fiber of your being. We'd say it's worth it for just that part, and that song, but the whole record, even as lacking in banjo as most of it is, is utterly ruling Norwegian blackness and comes highly recommended.
Taake is back (baake? no, that would sound like "Bach", and Taake is not Bach... though this IS classically grim, as it were... er, on with the review...). Norwegian black metal mastery on display here, as always from the Taake camp. This, their debut for big ol' Century Media, is their fourth full album, and upholds the fuzzy frosty folky foresty feel of majestic, malefic riffage and rasping we'd always loved about this band. Old school and cvlt for sure, with spiralling, deathgrunt thrash on offer during the likes of "Doedsjarl" and "Umenneske" (the latter of which, however, takes a droning, hissing turn into weird moodiness before its eight-plus minutes are up) and as well as a making dynamic dives into melodically catchy breakdowns of downtempo dying gasp rockin', like a wretched Katatonia...
Total pros, Taake manage to mix primitive necro Darkthrone essence with more epic fare, as on the album ending 10:37 "Velg Borg Livet". Buzzing beauty and the battering bombast of Celtic Frost style "ungh!" action coexist here, with craft and conviction. Century Media should certainly be proud to have the "Anti-Human Anti-Life True Norwegian Black Metal" of these guys on the roster.
And we've got to mention the cd art. A black disc, with what look like cookie cutter Christmas tree shapes in white, five of 'em, pointing out from the center in a sort of pentagram arrangement. It's kind of cute.
This disc also includes an Quicktime 'musikkvideo' for the track "Umenneske", but it's one of those live on stage videos that kinda takes away some of the mystery, we were hoping instead for an animated one with those evil Christmas trees or something.
The first in a series of ultra limited lathe cut 7"s from obscure black metal bands, this first installment comes from the mysterious Taarma, who hails from the equally mysterious Balochistan (which is in Pakistan), not exactly a hotbed of black metal, which is perhaps what makes Taarma's music so wonderfully strange and unlike most of the other black metal we hear.
Taarma's music is less about buzz and blast, and more about creep and rumble, the sounds warped and warbly, twisted and lugubrious, that sound enhanced by the medium, lathe cuts are inherently noisy, and degrade with every play, so after about 50 plays we can only assume, Taarma will sound even more fucked up and otherworldly.
The A-side begins with a weird, creeping, buzzy ambient intro, that slowly builds to a woozy midtempo lumber, the buzz muted and muddy, the drums distant thud, the whole thing washed out and weirdly melodic, almost like some sort of Jeckian black metal, everything wreathed in a strange echo-y swirl, the riffs gnarled and tangled, the vox a reverb drenched shriek.
The B-side is even creepier and slower and more dismal and depressive, like Striborg crossed with Abruptum, warped melodies, melting in thick black rivulets over a funereal plod, the vocals a swirling black fog, the riffs soporific and blurred, almost like someone spinning a black metal 45 manually with their finger as slow as they possibly can.
Weirdly psychedelic, tripped out, lysergic, a totally abstract chunk of outsider depressive blackness.
LIMITED TO ONLY 45 COPIES!! Each one cut in real time BY HAND on a record lathe, in New Zealand, by Peter King, the master of the lathe cut. And as mentioned above, with every play, the record degrades just a little, so it sounds slightly different every time, and grows more and more noisy and twisted, which is pretty much ideal for already noisy and twisted blackness like this.
Packaged in nice printed thick cardstock sleeves, these are the only copies we'll have, so grab one before they're gone.
Lumbering, blasting, feedbacking, croaking, grunting. Tangorodrim's latest sounds like it was recorded by some unhappy, undead zombies who just crawled from the grave, after having been buried for years with electric guitars and beat up vinyl copies of old Celtic Frost and Mayhem albums packed in their coffins. This is their 4th album, and boy howdy is it a sick sounding unholy din indeed. Super raw, often dirgelike, and weird too -- check out these lyrics: "I am ready to carry that cross/But only if it's made of priest bones/Only if it weighted a ton of holly intestines/Red Magnet draws me near/May my way will not interfere with radiant snow plates". Uh, huh, what? And all this Christ-hating blackness flows from the lands of the Bible -- Tangorodrim are one of the rare Israeli black metal bands. As usual, the Southern Lord stoners know their quality cult black metal.
The first thing you'll probably notice about this record is that it's called Unholy And UNLIMITED, yet it is strangely indeed limited (to 1000, each copy numbered), says so right there on the back of the disc. But okay, so what? So maybe it's not actually unlimited, but it sure as hell is unholy!
Tangorodrim are from Israel and are self professed purveyors of "Antipriest Unholy Black Metal." So not only are they unholy, but they also have a thing against priests, although we just figured that unholy probably covered not being into priests as well. And if the huge Antipriest text on the back cover didn't send all you men of the cloth scurrying for cover, well have a gander at the song titles: "The Six In The Coffin (Not Including The Priest)", "Priestkiller", etc. So yeah, Tangorodrim do not like priests, and are not shy about it.
Unholy And Unlimited is record number three as far as we can tell from these hellhounds and is one seriously blasting buzzing pounding, furious as fuck unholy black racket! Wrest from Leviathan calls this sort of BM goat metal, lots of midtempos, really murky and simple and thrashy, with grunted howled vocals, not so much shrieks or demonic growls, more sort of freaked out wailing and howling. But most importantly, lots of grunts, and "uunnghh"s when the riffs kick in. That's the key to goat metal. Buzzy and thrashy and gloriously evil. We love it! If you're still not sure what it sounds like, just check out the dedication on the inside of the booklet: "In the beginning there was Hellhammer... Without form, and void... and Bathory and Darkthrone were there. And it was black metal - Unholy And Unlimited... And god saw that it was BAD..."
Krust! Nekkro! Grimm! Kvlt!!! If it's evil-sounding and spelled weirdly then it most certainly applies to this filthy oily mass of lice infested, punk infused black metal that has slithered its way through the front gates of aQ HQ. Hailing from right here in San Francisco, Tare seems to be a totally new proposition, formed just last year, and they name the Finnish orthodox hordes as their primary inspiration (i.e. Horna, Sargeist, Vordr), but their blown out brand of venomous, simplified BM will surely appeal to fans of Bone Awl and Raspberry Bulbs as well (and maybe even worshippers of black metal ultra minimalists Ildjarn!). The guitars are a staticky stab, the drums a relentless minimal caveman plod, the vocals a garbled howl. If you like your black metal dirty, nasty and truly ugly then you don't want to pass this up. Plus it's housed in a swanky oversized case that includes both a cassette and a 3" cd-r (that both feature the same music we presume??).
Long in the works debut from this Oakland co-ed doomdronedirge duo. And we pretty much already knew we were in for something good. C'mon, they're called Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead, the record's called Kosmiche Death Worship, it comes in a cool silver stamped envelope, with a silver ink printed insert, the song titles and label info are physically carved into the cassette itself, and apparently the first few copies included an actual deer tooth. How bad ass is that? Suitably bad ass for the dark sonic rituals housed within, long sprawling droned out landscapes, bleak and barren, guitars, synths and electronics, woven into churning pulsing expanses of black ambient shimmer and droning industrial drift, think Wolf Eyes, Brighter Death Now, Wicked King Wicker, MZ412, this is some serious black ambient terrorism.
Fields of static cloak smoldering low end murk, jagged shards of feedback drift atop filthy pitch black sonic swells, fractured electronics are wrapped around minimal synth thrum and smeared into hazy dirgescapes, that creep and drift and ooze, the melodies buried and tangled in each tracks muted and muddy sonic morass, but definitely present, and infusing these songs with some sort of melodic core, which definitely makes these haunting sonic rituals actually musical, instead of just textural, the various sounds coalescing here and there into ghostly almost rhythms, but just as often slipping into a sort of blurred shimmer. The final track is the most majestic of the bunch, jettisoning most of the noise, and letting the synths and electronics carry the sound, resulting in a sound both epic and majestic, like the coolest black metal intro ever, stretched out into a cinematic creepscape, the sound growing more and more dense and chaotic, before slipping into a weird pulsing almost sci-fi sounding synthdrone outro. Definitely down to hear more from these two...
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!! And as mentioned above, housed in silver ink screened envelopes, with silver ink screened inserts.
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France's Norma Evangelium Diaboli has always been one of the labels to turn to for some of the best black metal the world has to offer. Since pretty much forever, we have championed the pure evil promoted by Deathspell Omega, Katharsis, Watain, and Funeral Mist, but somehow Teitanblood managed to slip under the radar, and it wasn't until the dudes in YOB strolled in and told us to check this stuff out that we realized it was time to get on track. Based in Spain, but featuring the talents of a couple of Swedes, one of whom spent some time in Ofermod, Teitanblood plays a super punked out style of blackened death metal that few other bands could pull off with such perfection. Just looking at Seven Chalices' artwork, which brings to mind a crusty Xeroxed punk approach crossed with medieval woodcuts, will give you a pretty good indication of what's in store. From the band's logo to the face of the cd itself - complete with that "compact disc" icon - Teitanblood deliver the goods with a decidedly late '80s/early '90s bent, but thankfully without any trace of retro fetishism. The guitars are thick and downtuned, recalling the tone captured on Entombed's Left Hand Path - you know, some of the greatest sounding death metal guitars EVER - the drums pound out ferocious, heavy as fuck D-Beats, and the vocals growl out hateful bile as they fly all over the mix. There are moments that bring to mind the early Earache roster with insane Greg Ginn inspired solos made up of equal parts pure chaos and total noise, and somehow the band manages to hit a psychedelic stride with its cosmic heaviness. Like other NED bands, they expertly utilize creepy samples of angelic choir voices that make the metal moments even more disconcerting and intense. There are plenty of sludged out dirges that make you think of thick black tar, but the band also understands the importance of a good thrashy groove. The only moments of rest seem to come with the interludes spaced throughout the album, but even these will make your skin crawl with their throbbing tension.
Basically, Teitanblood takes what you love about heavy music and makes good - real good - on it. With all the metal coming out these days, it's easy for this stuff to start sounding tired, but it makes all the difference in the world in the capable hands of some masters who know what's up. What you get is a dizzying blur of hate filled fury that is so heavy it sounds like it may collapse on itself. In other words, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Brand new cd ep from this Spanish black metal duo, which pairs the single track from their one sided Purging Tongues 12" (which was so limited we only got 1 copy), along with a new unreleased track, just two songs, but they're long ones, the shorter just shy of 12 minutes, the longer 15+. And these guys waste no time, after a few seconds of creepy intro music, the band EXPLODE into a dense wall of pulverizing blacknoize, the riffs so frenzied and distorted they blur into thick streaks of filthy buzz, the drumming fast and furious, but also weirdly recorded, with the toms sounding like a drum machine, drifting to the surface amidst the group's blackened squalls, sounding like some weird eighties programmed rhythms, everything tangled up into a churning, roiling black hole of sound, dense and noisy and chaotic, freeform and seriously psychedelic. Without headphones, this might almost sound like some blackened Merzbow, or more metallic Masonna, but close listening reveals all sorts of crazy stuff going on beneath the surface, intricate arrangements, bellowed vokills, tripped out FX, the aforementioned drumming, it's not until nearly 5 minutes into the first track, that the blown out blacknoise abates, and the band switch gears, launching into a doomy, but equally noisy, death dirge, a chugging blast of doomnoise heaviness, that soon erupts right back into the frantic blackened noisiness of the first few minutes. And then the leads come in, it just adds a whole 'nother layer of psychedelic chaos to the proceedings.
The second track lets its intro stretch out a bit more, strange Spanish voices over haunting ominous cinematic drones, and when the band kicks in, they seem to just play over the intro, the result a super tripped out swirl of collaged noisiness, until the song coalesces into some of the densest black buzz we've heard in ages, the sort of furious blasting, that seems constantly on the verge of total collapse, a barely restrained chaos, channeled into fierce black energy, and somehow, midway through, the band crank it up even more, the sound growing MORE psychedelic, MORE noisy, almost like multiple songs playing at once, a swirling tangle of black buzz that devolves into another sprawl of chugging dirgey heaviness, accompanied by that mysterious voice from the beginning of the song, resulting in what sounds like the scariest, noisiest obscure horror movie soundtrack EVER, right down to the tolling bells and grimly cinematic outro.
On The Steps Of The Temple is the debut from this Arizona duo, who offer up a killer slab of instrumental post-black metal, their sound thick and downtuned, the guitars MASSIVE, slipping easily from buzzing blast, to something more churning and mathy, the songs laced with soaring melodies, subtle swirling synths, grinding and metallic one second, with lots of stop/starts and tangled almost progged out arrangements, soaring and majestic the next, with a serious post rock vibe running throughout, at times sounding a bit like a blackened, more metallic Godspeed, and at others, ditching the metal completely, and unfurling some fantastically brooding musical moodiness that manages to be tense and intense without ever exploding into actual metal. That said, the bulk of the record IS spent in metal mode, somewhere between the doomy bombast of Neurosis, the epic slow build of Isis, mixed with some serious metallic mathiness and some furious blackened blasting, with much of the record mixing being a dizzying mix of all of those, the end result something melancholy and mesmerizing, moody and metallic, atmospheric and HEAVY.
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The last we heard from industrial black ambient terrorist Temple Of Not, was on a split with black metallers Nightbringer, which makes perfect sense as the man behind ToN, Alcameth, also fronts Nightbringer. But in ToN, Alcameth crafts gorgeously grim expanses of heaving blackened drones, and decaying industrial crumble, the tracks on the split with Nightbringer definitely bucked the black ambient trend by adding all manner of fucked up sound, noise and texture and samples, and on this new one, the method seems to be similar. In fact we were sort of expecting some shimmery black drift, but ToN offers up a sound much more corrosive and aggressive and creepy than typical black ambience, with thick streaks of howling horror, or crumbling distortion, alien voices, inhuman howls, pounded atonal piano, industrial creaks and groans, sounding more like the orchestral black doom weirdness of Gnaw Their Tongues. Sure there are stretches of hushed shimmer, and creeping black sprawl, but those are just brief respites between squalls of sonic crunch, stretches of undulating black terror, clouds of haunting ghostly voices and heaving slabs of blown out buzz.
LIMITED TO ONLY 150 COPIES!!
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Thee new issue of this metal readin' essential has Norwegian black metal icons Satyricon on the cover, just in time for Christmas, we mean, their new album. Also: Bloodbath, Cradle Of Filth, Cynic, Paradise Lost, Napalm Death, Aura Noir, Misery Index, Down, and many many more - in fact, there's a brand new section "Choice Cuts" devoted to brief bits on a whole bunch of more underground acts, like Oakenshield, Book Of Black Earth, Phazm, SerpentCult, Guillotine, Outlaw Order, and plenty more we'd actually never heard of before.
Plus lots of other features, including a 20th anniversary label report on Lee Dorrian's stoner/doom institution, Rise Above. And of course tons of reviews, one of the main reasons to pick this up every month for sure. Also, there's the usual free sampler cd stuck to the cover.
Best pull quote of the issue: "I spelt 'U' as 'V' so it looked cooler". That's from the "Choice Cuts" piece about Swedish one-man band Doom:Vs.
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THE magazine of "extreme" metal (all metal, really, except for really wimpy glam/pop/hair metal stuff that doesn't really exist much in this day and age), England's Terrorizer, presents their first issue of 2009, which includes their '2009 Preview' of exciting upcoming releases (from Absu to Voivod), the results of the 2008 Reader's Poll, their writer's picks for the top 40 albums of '08 (number one: Enslaved, and hey, Jex Thoth clocks in at 30), and all sorts of other stuff. There's the usual massive review section, and news flashes, and ads for insane European metal festivals you'll never get to go to. Then of course interviews, with the likes of cover stars Children of Bodom, Ephel Duath, Saxon, Architects, and others, including a ton of brief bits on less-known bands, among whom we noted The Wizar'd and The Devil's Blood. What else? A scene report on Swedish metal new and old, a look back at the making of ...And Justice For All, and more - including the usual bonus cover-mounted cd sampler w/ tracks by Behemoth, Kreator, Bullet, and others. Lots to delve into here, headbangers!
Latest issue of UK heavy music powerhouse Terrorizer. On the cover, Taiwanese black metallers Chthonic (a particularly awesome and creepy cover shot btw!), inside there's Behmoth, Bolt Thrower, Ulver, Neurosis, Death Angel, Glorior Belli, Burnt By The Sun, as well as part one of Terrorizer's Sludge Special, featuring a rad oral histroy of sludge and of course a brief history of Eyehategod. There's also a cool feature on Until The Light Takes Us, the new black metal doc made by Aaron from noise pop band Iran.
And as always, a ton of features on new and upcoming bands, loads of reviews, records, cds, reissues, shows, books movies, and this issue comes with a double cd, one of the discs featuring exclusively unsigned bands!
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Awesome cover - Immortal!! The larger than life face of Abbath staring out at you in perfect corpsepaint.
Also this ish: Slayer, Nile, Venom, Marduk, Baroness, Secrets Of The Moon, My Dying Bride, Evile, and plenty more.
On the free cover-mounted sampler cd: The Ruins Of Beverast, Skeletonwitch, Destruction, Gwar, Paradise Lost, Belphegor, and a bunch of other less well known acts.
As always, an essential metal periodical.
On the cover for some reason, Turisas. And inside this new issue of our favorite glossy metal mag from the UK, there's also Agalloch, Baroness, Impaled Nazarene, Kverlertak, Orange Goblin, and plenty more. Plus tons news and reviews of course. And the usual ads for insane European metal festivals we wish were could be at. And then there's the bonus cd sampler stuck to the cover. Metal, metal, metal!
Morbid Angel are on the cover, no apologies from them. Inside, also, Ulver, Autopsy, Fucked Up, Hell, Amorphis, Portrait, Brutal Truth, 40 Watt Sun, Enforcer, and (among other things) a "Crust Special" featuring Amebix, Gallhammer and Trap Them. Plus the usual reviews, news, and ads for crazy European festivals we'd love to attend. Stuck to the cover, a cd sampler w/ trax by Arch Enemy, Gallhammer, Dark Castle, In Solitude, Black Crucifixion, Portrait, and others...
Joey Jordison from Slipknot is this issue's cover star, but don't let that deter you (actually the interview might be interesting, the pull quote on the cover is "I am close to losing my mind"). Elsewhere this ish, there's pieces on Cave In, Kvelertak, Cannabis Corpse, Decapitated, Sepultura, Karma To Burn, In Flames, Shining, Deven Townsend, and a feature on the return of thrash's "Big Four": Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax. Plus all the usual other good stuff, reviews, news, bonus cd sampler (hear some of that new Morbid Angel here), etc. As always, recommended reading for all metalheads.
If you love metal, you really ought to be reading the two metal mags we carry regularly, Decibel and the UK's Terrorizer. Years from now, you'll wish you had a copy of this issue so you can nostalgically look back on 2011 and remember cover star... Tom G. Warrior!! Hey the former Celtic Frost / current Triptykon front man is a good interview. Weird dude. Also this issue: Premonition 13, Toxic Holocaust, Opeth, Runhild Gammelsaeter of Thorr's Hammer, Decapitated, Iwrestledabearonce, Book Of Black Earth, and plenty more including short bits on Disma, Volture, and others. The occasional Decibel/Terrorizer overlap happens with a Skeletonwitch studio report (really?). And there's the usual big batch o' reviews etc. Oh, and a free cd sampler stuck to the cover, with everyone from Twisted Tower Dire to Orthodox on it...
Another month, another installment of the UK's long-running metal-must read, Terrorizer. On the cover, looking like he just was in some sort of accident (or battle?), Nergal of Behemoth fame. Inside, stuff pertaining to such fine bands as Yob, Watain, Candlemass, Cerebral Ballzy, Evile, Gojira, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Anthrax, Obituary, Today Is The Day, and more! Comes with not one, but two, cd samplers.
Read all about such extreme metal mavens as Meshuggah (on the cover), Cannibal Corpse, Aura Noir, Saint Vitus (ooh, new album in another couple weeks!), Bolt Thrower, Split Cranium, Alcest, Angel Witch, Grand Magus, Paradise Lost, Black Breath, Soulfly, Mastodon, Orange Goblin, Shining, and many more. Comes with the usual free cd sampler disc, and there's also an Electric Wizard 'poster' inside.
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Wish WE were going to Bloodstock... or any of the other crazy metal festivals they have across the pond in August. Well we can live vicariously through the pages of UK metal bible Terrorizer, who put Behemoth's Nergal on the cover as part of their festival preview. Also this ish: Watain, Nile, Eyehategod, Grand Magus, Gama Bomb, Deicide, Mayhem, Cradle Of Filth, Nachtmystium, Old Man Gloom, Dimmu Borgir, and plenty more metal faves, big and small, black and death, etc. etc.
Plus, it as usual you get a free "Fear Candy" sampler cd.
Metal magazine madness! Terrorizer is the other glossy metal monthly we always turn to, this time with Dani Filth from Cradle of Filth looking kinda goofy (of course) on the cover. Also: 20 years of Darkthrone, Napalm Death, Grave, Sonne Adam, Dragged Into Sunlight, Anaal Nathrakh, Nuclear War Now! (label festival preview), Swans, God Seed, and more. Includes the usual "Fear Candy" cd sampler stuck to the front as well.
Another blast of insane black metal chaos, this time from an entity known simply as...THE ONE. And chaos it is. Sure it has all the hallmarks of grim fucking black metal, but this is so weird and sloppy and punishing and weird weird weird. Everything (drums, vocals, guitars) is drenched in reverb, so that when things get going, I mean really going, it turns into one intensely hellish blur, that sounds almost like Merzbow with only the occasional cymbal crash to help you keep your bearings. The drumming, when not lost in a dense cloud of impenatratable bllllleeaarrgghhh, is a weirdly stumbling beast, stuttering through arrhythmic fills and continually fluctuating blast beats. And then there's the vocals. Some of the most insane ridiculous vocals ever, heavily distorted and reverbed monster growls that threaten to overtake everything they're so high in the mix! And tempo changes and new parts are occasionally demarcated by a very loud grunt that is reverbed through the roof or some maniacal sinister laughter also drenched in effects. There are also all sorts of bizarre sounds underneath the frosty onslaught: what sounds like jaw harps on track four and the hoofbeats of horses elsewhere. But at it's core, like Graveland or Nargaroth, The One takes black metal into the almost static realm, creating totally buzzing blurry drones, assembled from super distorted riffs and rumbling basslines smeared into endless washes of hypnotic sound. So totally mesmerising but completely insane and absurd at the same time. Highly recommended for fans of black metal weirdness/insanity a la Necrofrost, Abruptum, Vondur as well as the grim black metal blur of Nargaroth and Graveland.
It's been almost 5 years since we last heard from Greek duo THE ONE, who back then, were maybe not a duo, and who were most definitely in our pantheon of weirdo black metal, along with Necrofrost, Abruptum and Vondur, vying for the top spot with their heavily reverbed blackness and insane vocals.
But here we are years later, and The One are not nearly as weird as they once were. Like Necrofrost, who have also resurfaced and whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this list, it might not be that they are less weird, but that the weirdness is better integrated into their sound.
Before, the music was a stumbling chaotic blur, everything tangled up with everything else, the mix super erratic, with various elements exploding out of the mix, the drumming wild and off kilter, lots of grunts and some of the growliest monster vocals ever, and we'd be lying if we didn't say we weren't initially disappointed that this record was so GOOD. And tight. And solid. Cuz it is. Good. Really good. Heavy and black, the guitars intense and thick and full, some awesome riffing, the drums hard hitting and audible in the mix, the mix itself lush and LOUD, plenty of groove and hooks hidden here and there, but not damaged or demented or fucked up. At least at first. No one can make music that weird and then suddenly ditch all the various elements that made that music so strange. So here, on I, Master, the weird shit is subtle, and generally tucked away amidst thrashing blasting blackness and chugging riffage, whether it's an impossibly long and harsh hissy howl, or some weird dubbed out cymbal shimmer, or even a creepy circusy interlude with a looped music box groove and whispered vocals, the weird stuff is definitely there, but that's no longer why we're here, this is some heavy Ravenstormy Blizzard Beastly blown out buzz drenched heaviness, with just the right amount of crooning chanted vocals and midtempo doominess to keep it interesting, but they have definitely ditched their fucked up fractured past in favor of something ultimately way more pleasing, a super epic, ultra heavy, dense and destructive, blasting and buzzing black metal, and so far today, we've listened to the whole record all the way through THREE times, and the night is still young...
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Latest from black ambient soundscaper Theologian, aka Leech, he previously of long running power electronics / synthdrone outfit Navicon Torture Technologies, and like the recently reviewed (and awesomely titled) The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face, this new one Finding Comfort In Overwhelming Negativity is another collection of abject industrial blackness, of heaving, shadowy blackness, of harrowing cinematic ambience, four sprawling tracks that ooze and creep, blurring rumbling drones into stuttering mechanical rhythms, buried voices and smeared chordal swells, the opening track here, the most overtly rhythmic thing we've heard on a Theologian record, a hypnotic rhythmic loop, creaking and scraping, metallic and mesmerizing, churns away, while all around it, shades of black slither and shimmer, wreathed in streaks of black FX and shards of glitch and gristle and thrum.
The rest of the record ditched the rhythms, and returns to a more rumbling droned out black ambience, shimmery and atmospheric for the bulk of one track, corrosive and caustic for much of the other, the second sounding near metallic, roiling slo-mo riffage, draped over disembodied vocals and a swirling morass of mysterious sounds. The crunch and buzz, gradually smooth out and becomes a mesmerizing sprawl of staticky pulsations, and while rhythmless technically, are pretty tranced out and rhythmic.
The final track might be the noisiest of the bunch, a post industrial sprawl of chaotic noise, overlapping rhythms, streaks of keening high end, lots of hiss and hum, everything brittle and upper register, sounds almost like some strange field recording of a post apocalyptic wasteland, all rusted out robotics and grinding machinery, like some of the moments earlier, weirdly rhythmic, gristly and staticky, but also noisy, washed out and sort of of bleached out, as if at some point the sound was full and rich and simply decayed into the wasted skeletal sprawl that unwinds gradually, and ends the record with a slowly fading sky full of static and hiss...
Gorgeously packaged in an oversized book-style digipak.
We had never actually heard much from NYC power electronics / black ambient / dark industrial / synthdrone outfit Navicon Torture Technologies, but we were definitely intrigued by this latest installment of blackened sound from NTT mainman Leech, under the name Theologian. Even before hearing it. It's on Crucial Blast, and if anyone knows their way around grim, bleak, black heaviness, it's CB. Then there's the gorgeous oversized cover, a long haired figure holding her head, underneath a strange sigil and surrounded by a decahedron and a field of pure black, and then the record title, The Further I Get From Your Star, The Less Light I Feel On My Face, and the accompanying song titles: "In Times Of Need, We All Go Against Our Natures", "The Fragility Of The Male Ego", "Bearing Bitter Fruit", and the packaging folding out to reveal more mysterious shapes and strange shadowy nudes, a pretty compelling chunk of art, even before we get to the sounds within.
And if anything, the sounds inside more than live up to that promise, the opening track "Zero" begins the proceedings, and we expectantly wait for some serious harsh noise, or some grim black ambience, and while there is a little of both, it's molded into something much more, well, lovely for lack of a better word, 5 minutes of crumbling black beauty, gorgeous plaintive melodies buried in a thick morass of buzz and blur and swirling hiss and whir, like a way more ominous and blackened Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, gorgeous, and gorgeously harrowing.
"In Times Of Need, We All Go Against Our Natures" is 24 minutes long, the majority of which is spent drifting through some nightmarish landscape of hushed minimal rumbles and post industrial grit, again, far more 'pretty' than we might have expected, a smoldering chunk of subterranean blackness, a roiling murky surface than offers brief glimpses of melodies and voices below, unsettling but gloriously grim, and in case we find the proceedings too soothing, the last few minutes find those sounds expanding and exploding into thick crumbling swells of blown out synths and fractured black electronics, underpinning some seriously anguished super distorted vokills.
The record continues in a similar fashion, creating blackened shades of beauty out of elements harsh and hateful, abject and bleak, the sound almost shoegazey at times, hints of Nadja for sure abound, but a Nadja stripped to its essence, the tracks creep, and crawl, and drift, thrumming and pulsing softly, wreathed in sheets of grit and grime, but always glowing from within, the melodies like buried black secrets. Occasionally, like on "The Fragility Of The Male Ego", the sound becomes super blown out and corrosive, an ultradistorted blacknoise, that for all it's corrosive clamor, remains somehow, if not lovely, at least haunting and mysterious, while other tracks, like "It's All Gone", take unlikely elements, and again, weave them into something strangely beautiful, but still undeniably pitch black.
Dark and mysterious and troublingly lovely, some seriously intense power electronics flecked black ambience, most definitely recommended for fans of Lustmord, MZ412, Nordvargr, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Wicked King Wicker, Locrian, Wraiths, Wolf Eyes, etc...
Incredible packaging, 6 panel dvd sized digipak, black and spare on the outside, full color on the inside.
We've been waiting for this one for a long time: the debut disc by Norwegian black metal legend Thorns! Aka Snorre W. Ruch. He's been an important, if obscure part of the Norse black metal scene since the early, church-burning days, but never managed to
Originally released way back in 1999, this strange split/collaboration was at the time, just about the coolest weirdest black metal (and otherwise) record we had ever heard, a record that really sounded like it was made just for aQ, unfortunately, that was long enough ago that the aQ list was still in its infancy, and thus, this amazing and baffling and brilliant record got short shrift. Just three sentences. But really those three sentences should be enough to convince you:
"Emperor covers Thorns songs, Thorns covers Emperor, although it's hard to tell which band is which, a good thing we think. Ends up sounding like a gothic, black metal soundtrack that's been given a John Oswald-style Plunderphonic treatment. The most evil use of Cubase we know of. Bizarre and amazing!!"
If there was ever a should-have-been-Record-Of-The-Week, this was most decidedly it. Thankfully, this just got reissued, and with bonus tracks to boot, so it seemed like the perfect time to revisit, and give this record the aQ love it so very much deserves, and heck, odds are lots of current aQ customers might not have been getting our list back in the day, so this is for you, and for anyone who needs (or just wants) a little more than those three sentences...
Emperor should need no introduction, they are elite members of the black metal pantheon, alongside Burzum, Satyricon, Mayhem, Immortal, Ulver and Enslaved. Their sound epic and majestic, symphonic and super technical, easily still one of our favorite black metal bands EVER. Thorns however might need a bit more of an introduction. Folks who read Lords Of Chaos, might recognize Thorns mainman (only man!) Snorre W. Ruch as having played a part in the infamous murder of Euronymous, by Varg Vikernes of Burzum. Ruch was with Vikernes that fateful night and was sentenced to 8 years in prison as an accessory to murder. Thorns only ever released one proper full length, and that was not until 2001, well after this collaboration.
But this collaboration, wow, not sure where to start, and not even sure how it came to be. It seems it had been years since the very first Thorns demos (not to mention the pre-Thorns outfit Stigma Diabolicum), so this split was intended to introduce Thorns to the scene, in preparation for his upcoming full length, and featured various older Thorns tracks reinterpreted by Emperor, as well as Thorns covering some classic Emperor jams. It was Thorns first new material since 1992, and weirdly enough actually featured Satyr from Satyricon on vocals. So it sounds like a pretty bad ass black metal match up, but it doesn't necessarily explain how goddamn weird it turned out.
The opening Emperor track is some strange sample heavy orchestral industrial workout, all looped samples, field recordings, strange metallic clanks, martial snares, moaning horn like melodies, faux strings, bursts of glitchy distorted vocals, frenzied guitars, and a super intense cinematic orchestral outro that leads right into a new version of Thorns' "Aerie Descent" from his first demo, a buzzing midtempo bit of blackness, laced with soaring synths, programmed electronics, definitely that modern Moonfog black metal sound that came to define the label and the scene, there are some strange samples, but for the most part the song is a dirgey bit of black metal buzz, laced with various bits of strange sonic filigree, finishing off with a stretch of church organ, haunting and mysterious.
The next track is where it gets really strange, a new Emperor created from various bits of an old Thorns demo, and it begins as a strange collage of weird electronics, backwards rhythms, whispered vox, disembodied guitar buzz, again weirdly industrial, before the black buzz kicks in, but it's all wrapped around that electronic skitter, not to mention some bizarre industrial percussion, the sounds looped and chaotic, changing speeds, the voices processed, skittering and stuttering, laced with rhythmic bursts of static, circus calliope, and then finally a furious blast of looped black metal right at the end. Still one of the coolest and weirdest black metal jams EVER.
Next up Emperor tackles Thorns' "Aerie Descent" and it sounds like classic Emperor, epic and majestic, furious buzzing, super intricate and heavy, the drumming incredible, the production massive, the organ outro somehow even creepier here. Emperor go again with "Thus March The Night Spirit", a classical reworking of their classic "Thus Spake The Nightspirit" from their brilliant Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk, and the black buzz of the original is transformed into some Tim Burton-ish soundtrack, all soaring strings, darkly moody and tense, with flurries of rapid fire notes, and soaring strings, no wonder Emperor sounded so majestic.
Thorns takes control again, redoing yet another old demo track, a creepy almost industrial sounding crawl, the guitars liquid and warbly, the riff slippery and strange, while a mechanical rhythm plods and creaks, the guitars get buzzier, the song gradually growing more and more blasting and black, but the vocals are weirdly processed, and even at it's pounding heaviest, the song is peppered with strange programmed beats and subtle electronics, exactly the sort of stuff that would end up defining Thorns weird mechanized take on black metal. "The Discipline Of Earth" is a Thorns original, and is the perfect blend of orchestral bombast, technical black metal, and brooding black ambience, again laced with programmed rhythms, swirling FX and electronics, creepy vox, before finally erupting into full on black buzz mode, only occasionally slowing down, at which points the underlying electronics and programming come to the fore. And finally, Thorns finishes things off with a cover of Emperor's "Cosmic Keys To My Creation And Times", a plodding doomy dirge, with huge crumbling chords, strange sung/spoken vocals, thick swaths of buzz, muted Teutonic pounding, all strangely and fantastically mechanical and industrial.
In addition to the record proper, this new reissue tacks on three bonus tracks, two pre-production mixes of tracks from the record, and a previously unreleased track, the Thorns demo "You That Mingle May", featuring Satyr again, but also Fenriz from Darkthrone. So totally essential, black metalheads who have somehow made it this far without owning this, right that wrong RIGHT NOW. And the thing is, this record is so cool and weird and varied and textured, that even folks with only a passing interest in or curiosity about black metal, might just find themselves blown away...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Emperor covers Thorns songs, Thorns covers Emperor, although it's hard to tell which band is which, a good thing I think. Ends up sounding like a gothic, black metal soundtrack that's been given a John Oswald-style Plunderphonic treatment. The most evil use of Cubase we know of. Bizarre and amazing!!
We had been hearing rumors about an art installation at the Whitney Museum in New York that featured original music from cult Norwegian black metallers Thorns. So as you might imagine we were pretty excited and intrigued, and went on a little quest to find out if it was indeed true. So it was indeed true, the installation featured artwork is by a guy named Banks Violette, and the music was indeed by Thorns Ltd. (Snorre Ruch of the original Thorns plus two other folks). The exciting part was that there just so happened to be a recording of the Thorns material for sale!! So we ordered a bunch direct from the museum and they just finally showed up.
So this isn't actually a cd, but a dvd, and it's more of a dvd-audio disc, just with still images accompanying the music. Each image displays for about 5 or 10 minutes, which means just a handful to go along with the 80 plus minutes of music. It's a little hard to get a feeling for Violette's art, as it's presented here in a series of blurred stills, but it seems to be mysteriously abstract, blurry images of lights and wires, faces and latex clad bodies, cords and strange machine shapes, over exposed faces, fuzzy close ups, the back of the cd case is a decaying wooden framework that looks decidedly like the remnants of a burned church, not sure if that has anything to do with Violette's choice of musical accompaniment or not...
Thorns Ltd. seems to be a whole 'nother beast, no buzzing black riffs or pounding drums here, instead Snorre and his musical partners explore a series of abstract soundscapes, sometimes noisy and chaotic, but more often than not dark and droney.
Slow drifting minimalist smears of sound, extended tonal rumbles, thick washes of gauzy high end, layers upon layers, slowly shifting revealing different overtones and strange reverberations with creepy almost inaudible melodies buried within. Machinelike whir, smeared into a pulsating blur, a wash of descending drones, like a series of turbines slowly losing steam, before more start up, only to rumble to a halt moments later. Crackling electronic splutter, keening feedback, piercing sinewaves, ambient clatter, tape hiss and crackly staticky noise, all woven into haunting dronescapes of distorted melody and abstract sound. Metalheads might not dig this (although they should, it's plenty dark and creepy enough) but it will definitely please fans of the dirge and the drone and the drift and the clatter, as well as the whir and the rumble and the creak and the creep (ie: folks who dig Coleclough, Mirror, Ora, Birchvile Cat Motel, Avarus, Axolotl, Skaters, Yellow Swans, Double Leopards, Hototogisu, Jazzfinger, Pelt Total, etc.)
ULTRA LIMITED!!!
You get American black metal played fast and nasty on this four-song ep. Yes, they are a ridiculous looking corpsepainted band (with a singing drummer!) but they sounded just as good as Norwegian forefathers Mayhem when we saw both bands play on different
We've sort of been burned out on death metal for a while now. Occasionally, something will catch us by surprise and kick our asses, like the most recent Deicide (yet to be reviewed) and some of the more over the top insane super technical stuff like Necrophagist. But for the most part, a few Incantation discs, a few Suffocation discs, some Cryptopsy, and maybe a few more odds and ends, and we've got our death metal fix perpetually, umm.. fixed! But for some reason this cold blast of blackened death metal from Swedish horde Thoron totally knocked our blocks off. Heavy and hooky, with super dense churning riffage, blasting drums, huge stretches of buzzy ambience, and all kinds of cool guitar harmonies, squiggly leads, and lots of classic metal sounding licks. As with all great metal, it's about the riffs, and Thoron come up with a mess of 'em, super original, but somehow completely familiar and catchy. It's sort of like a super charged, more downtuned, blacker, thrashier, version of some other classic thrash metal outfit. The vocals are gruff and gravelly, instead of the usual death metal gurgle, and suit the more classic sound. Heavy and buzzy enough to still hit the spot for the black metal obsessed among you, but for fans of classic metal, Bay Area thrash, Maiden, Slough Feg, stuff like that, this should totally kick your ass. Around here, it has definitely become one of our most listened to metal records of late! Way recommended!
Southern Lord resurrected and reissued this release a while back, but we just realised we hadn't yet listed it and figured that we really ought to, for the benefit of all you SUNNO))) obsessives out there who might have missed it. Thorr's Hammer was the deadly, doomful blackened sludge band that featured the SUNNO))) duo of Greg Anderson ("drones and sunns") and Stephen O'Malley ("crust and earth"), along with battledrummer Jamie Skes, subsonic attacker James Hale, and, last but certainly not least, vocalist Runhild Gammelsaeter. She being an authentic teenage blonde Norwegian and astonishingly capable of spewing gruff, vile vokills as ugly as she isn't. The band broke up when she went back to Oslo, which we're sure made them all very sad. But Thorr's Hammer left the legacy of 1998's Dommedagsnat album: four generally epick tracks of creeping, crushing dooom, plus for this reissue, a raw bonus track mpeg video of the band playing live in '95. So, get down in the dirt and get doomy with this, one of the blackened, gnarled roots of these guys' twisted family tree, other ropey branches being Burning Witch, Khanate, Goatsnake, and SUNNO))).
The very first Southern Lord release, the only release by this legendary band who existed for a mere 6 weeks in '94/'95, is now available once more, on super deluxe vinyl, 180 gram, housed in an embossed gatefold sleeve with deluxe metallic printing. Here's what we had to say about Dommedagsnatt when we first laid ears on it way back when:
Thorr's Hammer was the deadly, doomful blackened sludge band that featured the SUNNO))) duo of Greg Anderson ("drones and sunns") and Stephen O'Malley ("crust and earth"), along with battledrummer Jamie Sykes, subsonic attacker James Hale, and, last but certainly not least, vocalist Runhild Gammelsaeter. She being an authentic teenage blonde Norwegian and astonishingly capable of spewing gruff, vile vokills as ugly as she isn't. The band broke up when she went back to Oslo, which we're sure made them all very sad. But Thorr's Hammer left the legacy of 1998's Dommedagsnat album: four generally epick tracks of creeping, crushing dooom, definitely for fans of all the Southern Lord filth to follow. So, get down in the dirt and get doomy with this, one of the blackened, gnarled roots of these guys' twisted family tree, other ropey branches being Burning Witch, Khanate, Goatsnake, and SUNNO))).
Holy shit are we glad this thing finally got a much deserved reissue. Originally available as a super limited cassette, the two copies that managed to worm their way into the store were immediately snapped up by Andee and former aQuarian Cameron. Their gain was certainly the rest of the world's misfortune, because some of us couldn't stop listening to Cameron's copy before he jetted off to New York. For the longest time we could only conjure memories of these songs in our heads. Thou's contribution here, the four part epic "Abandoned", is some of the most majestic, beautiful, and psychedelic doom metal to emerge in quite some time. It also manages to be ugly as fuck. But damn, these songs just SOAR, everything is wrapped up in a blanket of ultra dense distortion with glacial drumming and some seriously unbelievable throat shredding goodness, the kind that makes mothers everywhere wonder what would make good boys want to do such things to their vocal chords. Storming out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Thou follow proudly in the tradition of their sludgey, thick as tar forefathers like Eyehategod, Crowbar, and the rest of the usual suspects, but there's definitely something about these guys that stands on its own, not to mention a pretty heavy black metal influence. While thankfully avoiding falling into an "indie" metal trap, Thou nonetheless successfully incorporates a blissed out melodicism that only a fool would deny.
Leech's contribution, an untitled 20+ minute monster of a track, is mighty impressive as well. The band hails from Salem, Oregon, and while we don't know anything about them other than this, it's pretty clear we have some research to do, because you all know how we love our Cascadian black metal. The song winds all over the place with super melodic guitar leads and some great basslines (which you can actually HEAR, unlike many black metal bands). The tortured vocals will definitely hit the spot for anyone digging Weakling, WITTR, you know, that kind of thing. The song is so melancholy, but it just sounds totally unstoppable and out for blood, we really hope to hear more from these guys soon.
The classy white record comes housed in a nice looking full color gatefold with a screenprinted poster, a crusty patch, and whaddya know, a free download card. And while it's great having this album available once again, it's still limited to a mere 750 copies with no plans for a cd release, so act fast!
Emperor guitarist/mastermind Ihsahn goes the sythestized-orchestra neo-classical route on this solo opus. Unlike his main band (or the former death-metal incarnation of the Thou Shalt Suffer project) there's no guitars. It's like the black metal of Emperor minus everything but the keyboards. And although he stumbles into "Peter and The Wolf" territory at times, there are moments of weird noise and chaos, where the lovely classical melodies are interrupted by electronic stutters and turntable fuckery!
We may indulge in some hyperbole now and then, but it's usually just because we're so excited by some new record. That's why there can be so many 'best ever's and 'greatest of all time's. But we're serious now. This is, without a doubt, and with nary a trace of hyperbole, the greatest and weirdest packaging we have ever seen. Really.
So before we get to the music (whatever... music... pshhh) let's talk about the case this disc is housed in. It was at one time, a regular old DVD case, but it has been coated in molded rubber, looking like the Necronomicon from Evil Dead, only the cover is a unicorn, all molded in 3-D complete with an actual glass eye, with various vines and flowers molded in along side the unicorn head and EYE!!! The back has the band name and more vines molded in. It smells like old tires and feels all soft and rubbery. It's got a little Gwar to it. But holy shit!!! It's so amazing to look at and to hold and to smell. Inside is an oversized screen printed booklet, with glittery eye animals, typewriter style liner notes affixed to the inside. Wow! It almost wouldn't matter what the music sounded like but the music is just as amazing. A freaked out furious grinding metallic onslaught, most songs clocking in around 30 seconds with one or two coming in around 9 minutes. 32 songs in 38 minutes. Buzzing guitars, blasting drum splatter and some seriously awesome fucked up vocals, squealing impossibly high, doused in FX, it sounds like a woman, or a guy with an impossibly high falsetto, it's almost like a grind metal Melt Banana, but with super fuzzy lo-fi fucked up production and some seriously damaged sounding guitars. Actually the vocals sort of sound like the little girl from Kiss' "God Of Thunder" all grown up and seriously hysterical. But that's not all, there's the album, a series of fucked up blasts of brilliant black metal grind fury, then a a few noise tracks, a live set, and then THE WHOLE RECORD IN REVERSE, as in backwards, fucking awesome! Everything sounds better backwards and Throne Of Blood is no exception. Then there's a few more noise tracks, then the second to last track, the record's nine minute epic, one riff repeated over and over and over and over and over. Minimal math metal genius. And then the final four minute number which sounds like it could be a whole 'nother record, with about a million tracks compressed into one 4 minute chunk, with more outrageously over the top insane vocals. Actually, it's a whole live set!!!
What more to say? The record is completely nuts, the packaging even more so. It's just too bad it's so limited. This cloud has a distinctly black lining.
LIMITED TO 125 COPIES!!! We tried to order lots more than we got, which ended up being about 20 copies, and once these are gone, this is gone for good...
Right from the opening blast of "Funeral Moonlight", even before the droning loping dirge of this album's lead-off track really surges forth, you know you're in for some true church-burning darkness from this Norwegian black metal duo. You'll also know that already if you've got their Unholy Holocaust Winds demo, which was released as a limited edition cd on the Paradigms label last year and got a rave review from us. Two of the three tracks ("Funeral Moonlight" and "Symbols of Winter") from that demo appear again here in re-recorded form, plus a three newer compositions ("Under Guds Hud", "Nattaander", and the title track), for a nearly an hour of grim, eerie black metal majesty. The expected frosty blurr of drums and guitars, and accompanying necromantical screams, is enhanced by Throne Of Katarsis' effective and somewhat unusual use of acoustic guitars, like some unholy mix of Darkthrone and Dissection.
We first heard from Norwegian black metallers via their Paradigms release Unholy Holocaust, way back in 2006, at the time, we had had no idea who these guys were, so we weren't sure what to expect, but what we got was a frosty blast of classic old school Scandinavian style grimness. A sound that fit perfectly amidst the elite, Immortal, Satyricon, Darkthrone, Enslaved, Emperor, yet Throne Of Katarsis definitely added their own twist, incorporating bits of fluttery folky acoustic guitar, and bit of druggy doom, even some super catchy Dissection / Iron Maiden like guitar melodies. Since then they've released one other record, An Eternal Dark Horizon, which found the band dialing back the melody and upping the grim frost, while keeping the acoustic guitars, to appropriately black and brutal effect.
So now here we are, 2 years later, and if anything (and if it were even possible), things seem to have gotten even frostier and grimmer in the Katarsis camp, there are still acoustic guitars here and there, but their appearances are brief, mere flourishes, mostly intros and outros, while the band seem more intent on thrashing and blasting coldly and blackly. The guitars here roooooaaar and the vocals howl, and the drums are boomy and crash and pound, the melodies are epic and majestic, the sound is super hot, super loud, everything doused in distortion and reverb, plenty of buzz obviously, but the sound is immediate and raw and furious and frenzied, almost like a classic nineties demo, cranked and re-energized, these guys sound fierce as fuck, tempering their cold Nordic steel with -just- enough melody and texture to keep it interesting, but no more, keeping the proceedings here, as mentioned above, repeatedly, cold and wintery, and frosty and grim, and heavy and so very black.
The third release in Paradigms' series of super limited cd obscurities, this time from mysterious Norwegian black metal horde Throne Of Katarsis. On first listen, this sounds like some lost slab of classic nineties Scandanavian darkness, ultra grim, super lo-fi black fuzz recorded on a 4-track, whirling drone drenched icy buzz, but the Throne manage to add their own little slant to the proceedings. The first hint that this is not just some typical BM group, is the warm church organ intro that manages to be totally misleading, unless you envision the ToK horder bursting in on a mass in progress and defiling everyone and thing in sight. Then there's the haunting acoustic guitar halfway through the eleven minute opening track, that quickly segues into some loping dirge-y doom, sounding sort of like a slowed down Xasthur. The acoustic guitar returns again closer to the end, and transforms that gloriously droning dirge into a strangely melodic, epic sweeping sway, sort of like Dissection or even Iron Maiden, albeit doused in muffled black grit and slathered with satanic skree. The second track is more straight ahead Norwegian black metal, bringing to mind Emperor, Mayhem mixed with newer black souls like Leviathan and Xasthur, especially with its weird sorrowful lilting Burzumish acoustic guitar melody buried beneath the fuzz. The final track is the real oddball (and maybe our favorite track here), partially recorded in the Liarlund forest, the sounds of footsteps crunching through the snow, the call of faraway birds, whirling whispering wind, all beneath a warm creepy blanket of muted synth and gargled demonic mutterings. Eerie and lovely, but still strangely black and grim...
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
We've definitely mentioned it before, but it's worth reiterating, as much as we love all strains of twisted blackness, of damaged and demented whatthefuck black metal, of warped outsider grim stumble and blur, the weirder and the more baffling the better, we still love and treasure TROO GRIM BLACKNESS done in the old style - Burzum, and Emperor, and Immortal, and Mayhem, and Satyricon, the Norwegian elite, and while there are tons of black metal bands these days, few capture the same sort of black energy, the same sort of grim chaos, the furious buzzing blackness, none of this 4 track lo-fi whine and buzz piddle, we're talking massive squalls of black buzz that sound like a black plague swallowing you whole, drums like the thundering hooves of the four horsemen, vokills straight from the pits of hell, all blurred into a soul shearing black fury, no experiments, no ambience, no twisted gnarled whatever, just grim black buzz. Which brings us to Norway's Throne Of Katarsis, who for 9 years have kept the black flame burning, and even now on full length number three show no sign of letting up, or fo changing their formula, which we essentially outlined above. This is classic Norwegian black metal, modern maybe, but as far as we're concerned these guys could have released this back in 1994 and been included in that ultimate black metal pantheon, where they so obviously belong. Hell, they're in our pantheon for sure, every new record another batch of grim black bliss. They do offer up a bit of clean singing, but it's more of a Viking croon, and it somehow suits the sound, whether ToK are frantically buzzing and blasting, or unfurling lumbering doomic slabs of trudging black crush. These guys rule, this record rules, and if you're after some modern true Norwegian black metal (and why wouldn't you be?!), you could NOT do better than this.
