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Daudehaud "Nеr Naturen Kaller"
Mordgrimm Records |
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| Raw primitive Norwegian black metal as it should be with an icy
guitar sound and throat lacerating vocals. This is music from the
bowels of the Norwegian underground and has the atmosphere and
darkly rhythmic menace to enshroud you in a haze of occult
excrement. Fast, manic and unflinching in its galloping mayhem.
Putrid Black Metal is always nice to hear and there are many
influences fragmenting from the disembowelling snare attack. We can
absorb the chaos of Mayhem, the macabre grace of Gehenna, the
barking mad ferocity of Darkthrone. Cold Norwegian Black Metal is a
rare phenomenon and when a modern band can spit forth that archaic
sound of yore so well it just makes you want to puke over the
nearest Bible. |
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Einherjer 'Norron' Indie
Recordings |
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It is odd to think that this band are still around as they have been
at it since 1993, released five albums, and have never really broken
out of the underground. There is of course a reason for this and you
don’t have to be a brain surgeon to reach the conclusion that
Einherjer never fulfilled the promise they once embraced. Unless you
are a magazine with a track paid for on the cover mount cd or have
an ad placed by the not so helpful label, the only honest opinion
of this album one can possibly reach is 'average viking metal that
doesn’t sound at all like viking metal'. The only good track has
appeared on cover-mount cd's and is the bait to lure you into either
buying it if you are a true metal fan, or |
| downloading it
for free if you are an arsehole. If you expect anything this band
were about many moons ago then you will not find it here. The past
of rich viking metal is now a modern metal band lost in a digital shit
storm. Go and track down the fabulous, Leve Vikingånden EP (1995)
and Dragons of the North debut (1996), if you really need to know
just how much potential this band once had |
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Gravlund 'Goat Funeral Night' demo 2011 |
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| 4 tracks of caustic ear melting Black Metal that follows the more
extreme aural lashing of demo era Emperor/ Burzum, and Forgotten
Woods. The rough and ready production is quite listenable and it has
the howling screechy vocals that send shivers down your spine.
Musically the style is more a old school in tone and has that
distant nineties demo atmosphere so ingrained to the underground.
The wonderfully titled, Encrusted Wounds Laced With Salt, is as
painful to hear as it is to imagine the song titles inspiration.
www.myspace.com/gravlundband |
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Legacy of Emptiness 'Legacy of Emptiness' Ketzer
Records |
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As the press release states, Legacy Of Emptiness is the
reincarnation of the original line-up of the band Ancestral Legacy.
While Ancestral Legacy is a functioning band today, band member
Eddie Risdal and ex-members Kjell-Ivar Aarli and Øyvind Rosseland
decided Summer 2010 to re-record some of the best songs from AL's
earliest demos to give them the production they deserve. The trio
took the name Legacy Of Emptiness as it would be wrong to use
Ancestral Legacy as AL's line-up and style in 2010 is completely
different than it was 8 years ago. Autumn 2010 a full length album,
including a brand new song, was recorded by the band, it was mixed
and mastered by Dan Swanö in Unisound, December |
2010. Cover
art was done by Jørn Melnes. The self titled album was released by a label
who ignores the true underground.
So how does it sound? Well Dimmu Borgir instantly leap into your
head when the first track, Possessed, rages from the speakers. Its
rich, lush keyboard orchestration embraces the galloping percussion
and the harsh vocal bite. Melodic, catchy and very reminiscent of
the symphonic masters of Norwegian Black Metal, Dimmu, Tartaros,
Obtained Enslavement, Arcturus, to name a few. I was very surprised
at the quality and depth of the music here, its very much a Dimmu
Borgir fans album in the line of Spiritual Black Dimensions,
although there is a great more to hear that Legacy of Emptiness add
through flawless musicianship and great memorable arrangements. This
is a beautiful album, a Black Metal album foremost, a raging majesty
of atmospheres and emotive metal music that evokes and the past and
inspires the present, and one of the best symphonic albums I have
heard.
www.myspace.com/legacyofemptiness
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Mechanical Flames Demo |
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A new band to appear from
the Norwegian hoarfrost and its of the retro thrashing kind. Taking
influences from the likes of Destruction and Sodom for sheer
chopping guitars and shouting like vocals. The tracks here sound predictable and familiar, and yet there
is a certain aggressive spine holding the creative arrangements
together. Melody seeps though the music amongst the sporadic bursts
of hammering snares and its the more mid tempo sections that allow
the thrashing rage to rumble in a more seductive atmosphere. Overall
this has all the basic elements of the aforementioned Destruction/
Sodom as well as Testament and Whiplash.
www.myspace.com/mechanicalflames
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Nekromantheon 'Divinity of Death'
High Roller Records |
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The retro thrash movement is alive and well in the Nordic lands with
bands like The Battalion, Dead to this World, and others. This album
is pure Thrash with balls evoking the first two albums of Slayer,
and the very essence of Whiplash and Bulldozer. This is so catchy
and in your face you will need a meat cleaver to peel the spitting
riffs from your skin. If you are a fan of the aforementioned bands
and miss the far flung days of pure buzzing thrash metal then this
band will plunge you into a time capsule and shit chunks of molten
riffermania down your gullet and cool it thereafter with vocals of
glacial piss. Musically tight, precise and dirtier than a whores
clit lips, this is a magnificent slice of riveting thrash metal |
| that I fully
recommend you go and get before you die of cancer.
www.myspace.com/nekromantheon |
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Svarttjern 'Towards the Ultimate'
Agonia Records |
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As reliable as ever, Svarttjern continue to produce razor sharp
black metal in the style of Marduk/ Dark Funeral/ 1349. It's nothing
new, but the music here oozes that likeability and easily digested
aural tightness and fluent grizzly menace. There is a restrained
fury here that propels the intricate old school thrash/ deathly
arrangements of the songs to boil over into a viciously delightful
Black Metal maelstrom. The vocals are what we like, grizzled
Immortal like barks and rasps spitting their utterances over a
frenzied guitar strum and malevolent percussion. It is more melodic and enjoyable than the bands 2009,
Misanthropic Path of Madness, debut. The sound sits between the icy
low fi style and the polished deathly style, |
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the music here to appeal to fans of both.
www.thesvarttjerncult.com
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Taake 'Noregs Vaapen' Karisma Records |
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This is pure and simply face shredding Norwegian Black Metal with
groove and that unmistakable early nineties icy primitivism We even
have Nocturno Culto , Demonaz, and Attila Csihar, who make their
marks upon an already sublime atmosphere of smoke stav church embers
and unholy NWOBHM injected with crack cocaine and bitter sweet
melodies. Taake have steadily evolved from a restrained glacial
Black Metal entity into a more Metal wielding force that owes as
much to Mayhem as it does to Venom. Hoest has been crafting his
music since 1993, so he has the authentic credentials to do what he
does in this scene without the care of who sharpens their critical
knives. The mighty albums of the |
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past, Hordadlands Doedskvad, Over
Booergvin Graater Himmerik, and, Nattsetid Ser Porten Vid, all have
their own individual merits and can be classed as classic Norwegian
Black Metal. This new offering, although more up-beat, is of equal
merit in its own frost bitten way.
http://taake.svartekunst.no |
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The Konsortium 'The Konsortium' Agonia Records |
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This is a band that is built around former Mayhem guitarist Teloch.
It is a savage collision of Black Thrashing rage that feeds upon the
likes of Slayer, Prometheus era Emperor, and Arcturus melting into a
rabid Dimmu Borgir without the pomp. This is pretty experimental
fast Black Metal that strives to hold guitars, bass and drums in
line and yet it seems that the ferocity of the mix lets go of the
whole instrumental frenzy, allowing a pneumatic drill like sensation
to penetrate your senses. Now I am not against having my brain
pulverized by music, but this band manage to twist my sensory
perceptions so that I actually feel nauseatingly unbalanced. It is
like the middle ear has been torn asunder and trampled |
| underfoot by
salivating hell wraiths. The music has far too much going on and is
a real test for the ears, especially when the scowling vocals that
reek of a demonic sore that bleed into an Arcturus like eccentricity
and in an instant switch the atmosphere from fast thrashing chaos
into a trippy swirling post Black Metal entity.
www.myspace.com/konsortiummetal
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Vredehammer 'Pans Skygge'
mcd Obscure Abhorrence Productions
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| Second mcd from this virulent Nordic band that has a precise aural
velocity similar to modern Mayhem and Nidingr. The drowsy keyboard
intro sets us up nicely for the imminent rush of hammering modern
Norwegian Black Metal. Fast, clean and hard as Satans hooves, this
band keep one foot in the rawness of old school, and one in the
deathly trashing post Black Metal clinicalism. The musical fury is
tempered with clean choral interludes and slower settled moments
that eliminate the ear lacerating intensity that pervades this
extremely well fashioned mcd. It is not until we get to track 4,
Betrakteren, that we really discover the soul of Vredehammer, a
melodic, groove swathed track that leaps from prog like moments to
traditional black metal mid tempo moods as well as hinting of the
more modern edged of Enslaved and Keep of Kalessin. The last track,
Farvann, continues this very accessible and fresh direction of sing
a long clean chants and head nodding riffs that evoke a viking
flavour, as well as the fresh writing style this band have adopted.
I hope the band will build upon this mcd and return with the promise
the music has touched upon.
www.myspace.com/vredehammer
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