BLACKMOON WARRIOR 88: "W.P.G."

 

In spite of keeping rather low profile and limiting releases to less than 100 copies, Blackmoon Warrior 88 has received an unimaginable amount of criticism on various message boards, but after giving W.P.G. an honest listen, I do not understand the incessant flaming. At all. Except, well, the little thing that this is deeply National Socialistic material. I’m no nazi, but I will not deny the music’s brilliance here.

As far as I’m aware, Blackmoon Warrior - the person behind this project - is also responsible for the noise project Pogromnacht, and the noise elements are very evident here in the beginning of W.P.G. (White Power Gang), as the first minutes of the tape consist of low-end rumbling noise that seems to have sounds of war behind it, but then again, I am not sure if it’s a real sample or just skillfully generated sounds.

After that kicks in the black metal that is on the verge of noise as well, much thanks to the brilliant guitar sound that must be one of the most violent of guitar tones I’ve heard to this date. It’s screeching, ringing, damn distorted, and when these simple, menacing riffs are played with that sound, the result is magnificent. Drums are somewhere in the background an apparently programmed, but it doesn’t matter a thing as it’s done tastefully. Vocals are a little buried as well, so those afraid of nazi propaganda can give this a spin without a clear exposure to the tabu.

The tape lasts for about ten minutes and, unlike websites like Metal Archives imply, it consists of just one long track, or two if you wan’t to exclude the noise intro to its own track. The four song names circulating around the net are actually the four first lines of lyrics of W.P.G. Definitely a recommended piece of NSBM that endures repeated listens, and I’m more than eager to see what this project offers on all its other releases.

4 / 5

MONS VENERIS: "Vastlands of My Decayed Realm"

Although Portuguese raw black metal scene has appealed to me a long time already, for some unknown reason it wasn’t until recently that I exposured myself to Mons Veneris, one of the most important acts in the country’s underground, and also part of the Black Circle Propaganda along with Vetala and Irae. Vastlands of My Decayed Realm is thus the first piece of Mons Veneris I’ve heard, and most certainly I am not let down. In fact, this tape seems to surpass many other releases from this circle of bands.

The key to Vastlands of My Decayed Realm’s success is that it knows how to craft utterly noisy and sick lo-fi black metal but with sufficient amount of musicianship. I don’t mean that you have to be a master of your instrument when you play this kind of filthiness, but compared to acts like Astaroth or Decrepitude, Mons Veneris actually keeps these songs nicely together, evident right after the introductory ”The Cremation of Light” (a true feast on screeching and random guitar noise) on ”Vastlands of My Decayed Realm” that has a really grabbing guitar riff into it along with steady drum beats. ”Darkmoon of the Vampire” returns to the maniacal kind-of-noise of the intro, meaning a low-end guitar (bass?) pattern being repeated in front of some inhuman voices.

”Cursed and Tormented for All Eternity”, then again, gets back to the black metal, but fuck how insane this piece goes as well towards its end. The drum beats remain there, but both guitars on left and right channels turn into an utter mess of high-pitched notes on the fretboard. After this, ”Return to Chaos and Void” seems almost calmful with its howling, mysterious and less distorted guitars, but in reality we’re dealing with another well crafted piece of filth, concluding the demo tape that definitely leaves a positive aftertaste. I would go as far as saying that Vastlands of My Decayed Realm belongs to my favourite Portuguese releases at the moment, and I’ll make sure to keep track of this band’s output from now on.

4 / 5

EVIL WRATH: "Chaotical Invasion"

Some say that black metal should evolve. Some, like Evil Wrath here, say a big fuck off to that. On their second full-length Chaotical Invasion, this hateful Canadian group offers nothing but true underground black metal in the very vein of Darkthrone’s golden era in the first half of the 90s. No more, no less. In good, and bad.

The paragraph above alone tells pretty much enough, but let’s go into some details, anyhow: Evil Wrath does know how to create cold sounding black metal without unnecessary twists, there’s that certain monotony in these rather long compositions - most evidently manifested on the over eight-minute title track - where a moderately paced blast beat carries the song through various tremolo picked evil riffs, rather high-pitched screams proclaiming death and hatred towards the whole of humanity on top. Bass guitar is quite non-existent but it does make the album’s lo-fi soundscape a tad fuller. And who wants some lively bass solos on an old school black metal album, anyway?

I’ve heard a fair deal of better albums in this field, albums that have summoned coldness and lurking menace much more convincingly, but then again, I’ve also heard many worse endeavours than Chaotical Invasion. This album might offer little to someone who needs basically nothing but Under a Funeral Moon to satisfy his needs for basic, hateful black metal, but for those who still seek out for different faces within a constricted, uncompromising style, Chaotical Invasion might just be his thing.

2.5 / 5

NACHTVORST: "Stills"

From the outside, Nachtvorst first major release Stills didn’t trigger any big interest in me to check it out, but luckily I did because Stills offers some very solid black / doom metal that, for some unknown reason, has remained rather obscure since its release a few years back.

Maybe the obscurity has something to do with the fact that Stills isn’t totally for underground cults and neither for those with a mainstream taste. The album balances somewhere between, providing five generally long songs of gloomy melancholy that present a lot of interesting melodies throughout the 48 minutes. The album is produced rather professionally, and the massive sound is put to its best use on the short instrumental ”Murmurs” that is so damn sludgy and heavy that it’s surely to have an impact on any listener, almost at least.

Excluding that track, Nachtvorst focuses on more general mid-tempo wanderings that occasionally turn into faster black metal sections. Recurring melodies appear smoothly within tracks, never sounding annoyingly repetitive. Some breakdown moments of more calmful sounds are presented in the tracks too to make sure the album never sounds boring. During the doomiest moments, vocalist Erghal is very reminiscent of Astaroth from Raventale and very similar to Mikko Kotamaki (Swallow the Sun, Alghazanth) during the higher-pitched screams.

Nachtvorst’s debut offering took me by surprise: it’s not often you come across this grabbing and well performed black / doom metal fusion. Even if not doing anything outstandingly innovative here, Stills deserves more recognition and will get more plays at least in my player from now on.

3.5 / 5

NAZXUL: "Iconoclast"

Nazxul remained rather silent in the 2000s and, in fact, this is the band first full-length in 14 years. Now I must confess that I’m not familiar with Nazxul’s back catalogue (soon to be fixed though as I’ve already received a promo of their debut that was just rereleased) so this is written from the perspective of a total newbie to Nazxul’s music.

What Iconoclast seems to offer is synth heavy melodic black metal. Clear and professional production backs up this lengthy piece of 14 tracks - of which some are pure ambient interludes, though. There’s almost nothing obscure about Iconoclast: everything is upfront and easy listen to, from the accurate and massive drumming to the evil shrieking somewhere in the middle range. However,  a great deal of details can be found from the record as it contains many layers of sounds, so it’s not like Iconoclast is THAT simple album to digest.

While the first half of Iconoclast focuses on faster tempo and more devilish output, the eleventh track ”Oath (Fides Resurrectio)” slows things down a little and sounds upbeat, at least partially. This kind of little variation between songs is very welcome. I also find myself enjoying the short ambient pieces greatly in all their minimalism: they’re done with good taste, humming and droning pieces of simple sounds.

What I fail to grasp about all the hype I see revolving around this album is that what makes Iconoclast so special? Most certainly, the album is well done in every aspects but I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t differ so much from some other modern symphonic black metal efforts. Nonetheless, you can expect a lot of great atmosphere from this album even if it doesn’t provide any surprising moments. At all, really. From that perspective, Iconoclast suffers a lot. But then again, I do enjoy the album all around but, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve all the praise that it’s been getting. Definitely above your average symphonic black metal album, anyways.

3 / 5

TODESKULT: "Apathy"

Apathy - a rather fitting name for Todeskult’s second full-length offering from last year. As I have stated a plethora of times before, there’s an overabundance of bands within the circles of depressive black metal and Apathy seems fairly unnoticable for various reasons, unfortunately.

For sure, this isn’t the cheapest drum machine bedroom project out there, no - there’s a five piece line-up behind this album and everything is executed rather well. But where Apathy fails is providing almost anything significantly personal - not that uniqueness is a requirement for me personally, but Apathy is really gray: partially due to the somewhat powerless production where really nothing stands out and the actual compositions that are mostly quite faceless. And when the album goes on for over an hour, I must say I’m a little bored.

A fitting comparison to Apathy would be a less interesting version of Nyktalgia: Neideck’s desperate screams are pretty much in the same vein and so is the overall spirit on the album. While the atmosphere here is enjoyable, I’d prefer putting on Peisithanatos, for example, for a greater listening experience where I’m not disturbed by musical stagnation.

Now that I look at this, I’ve been mostly bashing Apathy it seems, but I can say that the album most certainly has its fanbase somewhere. Like I implied, the band comprises people who know what they’re doing but this time they don’t really convince me - perhaps I’ve heard too many albums in this vein. If you don’t mind utter greyness in your depressive black metal, then do look into this. 

2 / 5

END: "III"

After multiple spins, End’s third album - simply titled as III in the same vein as the previous two - starts to show how diverse the record actually is, despite how gray it sounded in the beginning. The simple black & white cover art nods to a rather basic underground black metal formula, but III is surprisingly detailed and almost progressive. Yeah, I could even mention Opeth here when it comes to certain beats and guitarwork here and there.

So, what is to be expected of III is frenzied, authentic black metal with rather professional and bassy sound, vocals going from high-pitched screams to masculine growls similar to Mikko Aspa, and even some acoustic guitars (”In the Womb of Sick”, ”Ugly and Bygone”) among the distorted ones that are, by the way, played very well. The menacious melodies are played with ease, making the album sound a well-rehearsed totality. The drummer deserves a mention here, too, due to the successfully powerful battering that is groovy  at the same time. A down-side, however, is the fact that the drum sound is somewhat muffled: for example, the snare drum could do better with some more snare mat.

Song-wise, III is at times brilliant: the rather slow and brooding ”Still in Flesh” sends chills down my spine and ”Lavish Gloom” rises nicely to a melancholic climax, for example. But compositional stagnancy is to be found here, too, unfortunately. In spite of all the many ideas that are provided - III is far from being repetitive or anything - there are moments when the riffs simply don’t have enough power (the first half of ”Megalomania”). But no worries, most of the album’s 50 minutes are still worth hearing, keeping the listener enough interested.

I find it hard to name any similar bands, in all honesty. For who I would recommend III? That’s a question I’ve been pondering since listening to the album for the first time. I guess I could throw Si Monumentum era Deathspell Omega here as a reference point, just don’t expect that deeply evil and dissonant music - a more rocking version of it, this could be said to be. Anyhow, III is definitely above an average black metal album, that is for sure. 

3,5 / 5

KILTE: "Absence"

(Review is based on the 2009 re-release)

From the first seconds into Absence, it becomes clear that this Belgian act doesn’t try to be most innovative depressive black metal project, that’s for sure. And it’s unfortunate, because I fail to find anything really grabbing from the five tracks provided on Eisenwald’s 2009 re-release of this EP.

The band mostly wanders in mid-tempos, overall atmosphere being murky and sound-wise fuzzy and very modified - especially the vocals that are a wall of distortion, killing all the possible emotion of the original voice. It’s a shame, and I personally think that the guitar sound could do better, too, as it sounds too muffled with modern effects.

The aforementioned unnaturalness is clearly Absence’s weakest link, but there’s something to nag about the compositions, too: while ”Haar Laatste Traan” succeeds in creating an enjoyable desolate atmosphere with synths in prominent role and ”Eindeloos Verval” is at least partially a pretty good calmful track  the whole 36-minute package is in general rather infertile, and the two bonus tracks are just earlier demo versions of two of the EP’s songs, so those don’t bring much added value. The sound is more cruel on the demo versions and I find myself digging it better than the effect-filled EP material, nonetheless.

For those who don’t mind unoriginality in their depressive black metal, Absence is recommendable; personally I find it a tad too underwhelming even though it has its moments (I do find myself lost in some sort of trance during ”Eindeloos Verval”). Depressive black metal has seen better releases and I prefer grabbing some Abyssic Hate or Hypothermia from my shelves instead of this, in all honesty.

2 / 5