THORNIUM: "Dominions of the Eclipse"

The nineties of Scandinavian black metal are often hailed in the names of just a handful of influential records, and deservedly so, but a more profound look into the supply of those times reveals a goldmine of other worthwhile albums. Thornium, who? Exactly. I remember hearing, and disliking, their 2010 album Fides Luciferius, a real turd of modernized soulless black metal, but I wouldn't have guessed what a gem the same band had crafted fifteen years earlier. Dominions of the Eclipse, the debut, is everything that the band's reincarnation is not: tasteful, and authentically evoking auras of hate as well as of magical northern woodlands.

I'm sure there are reasons why this album never made it as high as their country mates. Primarily, the reason might reside in the album's very static production: the sharp guitar lines have no dynamics whatsoever, and the whole soundscape is stripped off of any ornamentations. It is about tremolo guitars, stable (almost crazily stable) blast beats, hate-filled traditional vocals and the occasional keyboard atmospheres. Initially, there was next to nothing that impressed me, but repeated listens have thankfully showed the album's greatness. Many of the riffs, seemingly stale at first, reveal signs of ingenuity that challenge some of Veles' and early Satyricon's ideas. Listen to the acoustic breakdowns of ”Emperor of the Carpathians” or the otherwordly intro to ”De Som Pesten Drapte”. Or the hypnotizing touch of the folkier ”Slottet I Skuggornas Morker”.

What comes to the recent reissue of the album, I would have preferred to have the great concise album as it originally was. The ambient outro ”Förmörkelsens Herravälde” is a 2011 remake, and next up are two other newly recorded bonus songs, and quite a leap backwards they are form the album: pushed, compressed modern sound hits the listener's ears, and at least yours truly starts losing interest after a few seconds. As a compensation, the band's early demo North Storms of the Bestial Goatsign is added to the end, bringing back the 'good old spirit' with natural, rehearsal atmosphere that revels in so much more feeling and atmosphere than the interruptive, contrived new recordings.

Dominions of the Eclipse is definitely a recommendable album for anyone interested in looking a bit further through the facade of the most predictable essentials. It is an enjoyable glimpse to another time when the whole notion of black metal wasn't yet so refined, and didn't include any unnecessary gimmicks. As for what Thornium did musically after this album, I wouldn't step on those grounds at all. What you've got here is a good though largely forgotten album from the pages of black metal's history.

4 / 5

BLACK CRUCIFIXION: "Hope of Retaliation"

A few weeks ago, Black Crucifixion’s music was still an unexplored territory for me, from the earliest and ugliest black metal recordings to Hope of Retaliation, their newest offering after a long silence. While The Fallen One of Flames / Satanic Zeitgeist taught me a lesson on primitive, early Finnish black metal, the cover art that adorns Hope of Retaliation does confuse. Is this some poppy industrial metal, or what exactly?

Not at all, though we’re clearly dealing with a record that doesn’t exactly try to avoid mainstream popularity as the polished, crystal clear production and chorus-based progression of the first track ”Retaliation” nod towards a general metal audience instead of any underground black metal cultism. Hope of Retaliation brings to the game four new songs (of which one is a brief interlude) and five live tracks, so calling this album a brand new full-length seems a little off.

Musically, we’re not entirely away from the band’s earlier material as the whispery, Beherit esque vocals imply. A bunch of blast beats can be spotted from here as well, though for the most part the pace is kept a quite slow levels, and the guitars comprise a lot more melody than before. Thus said, a more proper genre tag for Hope of Retaliation would be dark metal, I guess. The most I’m impressed of the 9-minute ”Bitten by the Long Frosts of Life” that wanders in both brooding and epic landscapes to a great success, and the weakest link of the new songs is definitely ”Night Birds Sing Your Demise” which is a short, droning interlude that doesn’t bring much to the table, except irritation by the fact that it takes one slot of the very few new songs on the album.

The second half of the disc, consisting solely of live tracks, showcases material from the whole career of Black Crucifixion: ”Master Spirit” from The Fallen One of Flames, ”Promethean Gift” and ”Serpent of Your Holy Garden” from Promethean Gift, and ”Where Will You Hide” and ”Winterkill” from Faustian Dream. While on the actual records one can notice the band’s clear evolution from simple black metal to more experimental approach, here the songs fit seamlessly together, forming a good 18-minute whole of its own. Heck, in a way these songs fit together with Hope of Retaliation’s new material as well, so from that perspective you could call this a proper full-length album.

I can’t say that Hope of Retaliation is hundred percent my thing. The dark metalish approach does work and the live takes are solid pieces, but then what? The material isn’t anything out of the ordinary, as the first side of the album is quite basic metal of nowadays and live songs don’t offer much pleasure to anyone but the hardcore fans of the band and those who are new to the band and hence get a compact view into the band’s whole career. These things added to the cover art that I really do not dig makes a record worth of a moderate, goodish score. Would be lovely to hear a true full-length next time, but knowing how slowly Black Crucifixion crafts material, it might take a while.

2.5 / 5

BLACK CRUCIFIXION: "The Fallen One of Flames / Satanic Zeitgeist"

While Beherit’s early recordings became total cult items and the band has been praised incessantly to this very date, their brother band Black Crucifixion, hailing from the very same circles in northern Finland, never garnered the same amount of attention. The Fallen One of Flames is, nonetheless, an essential piece of the country’s black metal history along with the originators - namely Beherit and Impaled Nazarene - and on this recent re-release, the demo comes together with the live recording Satanic Zeitgeist that was recorded at the legendary Day of Darkness festival a year before The Fallen One of Flames’ release.

The Fallen One of Flames comprises five tracks of which three are actual black metal, starting with ”Flowing Downwards”, a lengthy feast on mid-paced, simple riffs reminiscent of Samael with subtle synths in the background. ”Master Spirit” is a faster, blast-filled piece and hence more clearly in the vein of Beherit, also due to the whispery vocals. ”Goddess of Doom” was originally a bonus track on the first 50 copies of the tape, but luckily it is included here as well as it is as strong song of muddy, evil black metal in a fitting, dirty soundscape.

For me, the best part of the CD is actually the live recording Satanic Zeitgeist. I’ve heard some criticism about the sound production here, but I can not fathom that: this sounds brilliant! I’d go as far as saying that it sounds better than the demo due to the sharper and tighter sound in which these swift songs work very well. As implied, the compositions are simple here as well and they profit from being enough short. ”Black Crucifixion” and ”Satanic Zeitgeist” are pretty damn great songs of utter morbidity and all that is possibly evil, most perfectly apparent when the blast beats get high in tempo and the vocalist does maniacal, high-pitched screams that bury everything else in the background. Needless to say, Venom and Sarcófago covers fit like a fist to the face to the slew of tracks here, and I’m especially fond of the latter, ”Nightmare”.

If you’re to explore what the history of Finnish black metal has to offer in its very first years, The Fallen One of Flames / The Satanic Zeitgeist is a logical purchase among the obvious ones. It convinces with its deep dark atmosphere and knows to crush with riffs. A worthwile re-release undoubtedly, and wholeheartedly recommended.

4 / 5

REPUKED: "Pervertopia"

Judging by its appearance, and several references to GG Allin I’ve seen in relation to this album, one or another could think that Repuked’s debut full-length Pervertopia would be full of tongue-in-cheek punk played under influence. That is why it comes as a slight surprise that Pervertopia is so solidly hammered death metal instead of mere random punk bursts.

Don’t get me wrong, Pervertopia indeed is filthy, ugly and nasty, with an uncountable number of references to vomiting in song titles. Vocals, varying from lower grunts to higher pitches, also take care of the puking element of the band, spewing the filth convincingly. Production-wise, Pervertopia sounds huge, guitars having the main role with their vast, crushing sound, not to forget the rather simple yet effectively battered drums.

For the most part, the tempo is kept at quite high, ”Toxic Constipation” being a major exception from the code though as it’s a long, doom-driven piece of slow menace. Proper highlights come hard to mention as the 45-minute whole doesn’t offer any truly outstanding compositions - instead, all the songs are equally vomit-inducing - which becomes the album’s only main problem, as there’s not that much to remember afterwards, though some songs like ”Mental Vomit”  and ”Chemically Wasted” (with its maniacal, hypnotizing (!) instrumental outro section with a constant blast beat and a lot of noise) do get stuck in my head.

Along with the other January release, Maim’s Deceased to Exist, Soulseller Records has again spawned a solid death metal release into the world, a release worth of the attention of those who like their old school death metal with a load of nastiness instead of any occult imagery that seems to be so common today. With a little more focus on memorable songwriting, I could be impressed to much higher extent next time these Swedes come around, but Pervertopia is already a fine and enough endurable installation into the genre.

3 / 5

MAIM: "Deceased to Exist"

Swedes and their old school death metal. Read no further if those words already sicken you, but if you are one of those who still check out new bands playing what Dismember, Entombed and Grave did twenty years ago, proceed: Maim’s second album Deceased to Exist, released during the first days of this year, is a very solid piece in that certain style.

And lucky for them, they have not utilized the biggest clichés available, namely the buzzing guitar sound; instead, the guitar sound here is just purely heavy and deep, and so are all the other instruments as well, much thanks to the highly reverberating production that is a definite plus feature of Deceased to Exist, creating an abyssal atmosphere.

Also, the band knows how to slow down and still sound utterly menacing: while songs like the opener ”Gravedigger Sacrifice” attack with moderately high speed, there are, for instance, the Archgoat esque sections of ”Morbid Desecration” and the wholly slow-tempo, doomy ”Crematory” that belong to Deceased to Exist’s finest moments. Another highlight worth mentioning is the closer "Screams of the Mutilated" that, even if otherwise unsurprising, ends the album in sinister solos and spoken samples in the background.

Towards the end of the album the similarity of the songs becomes a little dulling, but nonetheless I can say that Deceased to Exist is a fine old school death metal album with convincing heaviness and darkness. After all, it's not every day when you come across this well done production job combined with crushing, evil compositions. Fans of the style won’t waste their time at all checking out this album, I’m sure.

3 / 5

HERETIC: "Praising Satan"

Praising Satan compiles re-recorded and rare material from Netherland’s Heretic’s back catalogue, providing a sweet whole of old school thrash/black metal, rock and punk in 13 tracks and 40 minutes. Stop reading already if you’re expecting something innovative.

After a dozen of modern 200 beats per minute metal albums that I’ve heard recently, Praising Satan is refreshing with its almost laid-back rock rhythms. No blast beats are in sight, basic rock’n’roll beats dominate these simple songs of palm-muted power chords. The vocalist, spewing out his lyrics in semi-clean thrash metal shouts, delivers lots of reverence for Satan but in kind of tongue in cheeck spirit, it sounds. Don’t expect any deep Satanic philosophy. It’s more for the old school shocking value I would guess, in the very vein of those old Venom and Bathory records, records that have clearly influenced Heretic’s sound.

Although most of this material is lately re-recorded, it sounds old. It’s not raw and rehearsal-like at all, but it has the charm of 80s or something along the line. My personal favourites reside near the end of the compilation, namely ”Hellfire Satanist” and ”Black Metal Overlords”, really dusty and filthy pieces that differ a bit from the other tracks’ productions.

I didn’t have high expectations for Praising Satan or even Heretic in general, but I was pleasantly surprised. In spite of the really generic musical style, Heretic manages to do it rather well. This isn’t my usual cup of tea but provides some ass kicking material anyhow, even more so in live settings, I’m sure. Recommendable for all the old school maniacs, obvisously, though I’m unaware how much these re-recorded tracks differ from the originals.

3 / 5