Joyless
Unlimited Hate
[No Colours]
8 tracks/64 min.
This can basically be considered a "post Forgotten Woods" release, since this band is in fact Forgotten Woods (Norway), yet with a change of style. The first thing that struck me before actually listening to the CD was the cover art/packaging. I was quickly hit with an abundance of flashbacks, since the (beautiful) cover art is done (stolen actually) by Arthur Acklahm (sp? or at least someone with a similar style), a British artist who at one time was quite popular with his work concerning faeries/nymphy/various other spiritual creatures. I remember sitting on my mum's lap as a wee child looking at his work while she told me tales of such creatures. *sigh*
Enough of that though. What is the music like? It's actually quite Avantgarde, yet filled with enough substance to worthy itself of many a listen. The music is done in the typical Forgotten Woods style: semi-fast paced, sombre riffs, a guitar sound that sticks out, and so on. The first three tracks take that style though and change it, they add a new form of vocals, and some other minor changes that you have to listen to deeply to really appreciate. The new vocals are at times simply spoken, and at others yelled in a more traditional metal (or even hardcore) fashion. The Burzum-ish screams come through in the first few tracks as well, although in a far less extreme fashion. Very deep actually, and the music is quite interesting. Imagine fast and dark black metal, played in a depressing and well thought out fashion, yet with a vocalist who can't quite make up his mind...as if he's telling a story of sorts.
Track 4 is a Motörhead cover, and is actually quite good. I consider myself quite the fan of Motörhead, and this song is in no way an insult to the band, especially when considering the Lemmy copy-cat vocal style. Quite "rocking" actually :) (the track is (Don't need) religion).
Track 5 is a "new version" of the song "Overmotets Pris" from the album "The Curse of Mankind". I've always considered this one of the more heavily Burzum influenced tracks, but also one of their best. It's all really doomy sounding, and quite nice. I can't really point out too many changes here though....
Tracks 6 and 7 are the highlights of the album though. The song "Jomfeulystes Fall" is quite cold sounding, and quite similar (yet better) than some stuff you might have heard on the Carpathian Forest mCD released awhile back. There's some acoustic guitars, distorted riffing, and simple drumming. "Dimension of the Blackest Dark" on the other hand is one of their finest tracks ever, and is a VERY dark and depressing black metal track. The riffs really stick out here, and the Burzum-ish vocals of course work nicely. Fantastic really.
There's also a "hidden" track of sorts about 5 minutes after the final track finishes. It's a fairly sad (not in a bad way) sounding piano/synth bit, with some heavy 80's influence. Something you'd hear in a serious film from that time, and I would not be surprised to hear if they'd actually stolen it from a movie soundtrack. The band don't give off an aura of modern (or medieval, or evil, or etc.) black metal really...so I guess this is fitting.
All in all an excellent album. Very deep, there's nothing simple or straight-forward here, and for fans of simple music this will be a difficult listen. This will appeal to fans of Forgotten Woods, Burzum, or even Celtic Frost. People constantly accuse me of being too rigid when it comes to how black metal should sound, but I fully accept the music on this CD. It's interesting, dark, and highly enjoyable on a certain level. Although labeled Burzum rip-offs in the past, I think this nicely proves those very accusers wrong, since Joyless do have a mind of their own.
Some things to note though:
i) Why the picture of a toilet????
ii) What is that vile sound near the end of track 6?? It sounds like they recorded a chicken being tortured!!
© 1998 brand
This can basically be considered a "post Forgotten Woods" release, since this band is in fact Forgotten Woods (Norway), yet with a change of style. The first thing that struck me before actually listening to the CD was the cover art/packaging. I was quickly hit with an abundance of flashbacks, since the (beautiful) cover art is done (stolen actually) by Arthur Acklahm (sp? or at least someone with a similar style), a British artist who at one time was quite popular with his work concerning faeries/nymphy/various other spiritual creatures. I remember sitting on my mum's lap as a wee child looking at his work while she told me tales of such creatures. *sigh*
Enough of that though. What is the music like? It's actually quite Avantgarde, yet filled with enough substance to worthy itself of many a listen. The music is done in the typical Forgotten Woods style: semi-fast paced, sombre riffs, a guitar sound that sticks out, and so on. The first three tracks take that style though and change it, they add a new form of vocals, and some other minor changes that you have to listen to deeply to really appreciate. The new vocals are at times simply spoken, and at others yelled in a more traditional metal (or even hardcore) fashion. The Burzum-ish screams come through in the first few tracks as well, although in a far less extreme fashion. Very deep actually, and the music is quite interesting. Imagine fast and dark black metal, played in a depressing and well thought out fashion, yet with a vocalist who can't quite make up his mind...as if he's telling a story of sorts.
Track 4 is a Motörhead cover, and is actually quite good. I consider myself quite the fan of Motörhead, and this song is in no way an insult to the band, especially when considering the Lemmy copy-cat vocal style. Quite "rocking" actually :) (the track is (Don't need) religion).
Track 5 is a "new version" of the song "Overmotets Pris" from the album "The Curse of Mankind". I've always considered this one of the more heavily Burzum influenced tracks, but also one of their best. It's all really doomy sounding, and quite nice. I can't really point out too many changes here though....
Tracks 6 and 7 are the highlights of the album though. The song "Jomfeulystes Fall" is quite cold sounding, and quite similar (yet better) than some stuff you might have heard on the Carpathian Forest mCD released awhile back. There's some acoustic guitars, distorted riffing, and simple drumming. "Dimension of the Blackest Dark" on the other hand is one of their finest tracks ever, and is a VERY dark and depressing black metal track. The riffs really stick out here, and the Burzum-ish vocals of course work nicely. Fantastic really.
There's also a "hidden" track of sorts about 5 minutes after the final track finishes. It's a fairly sad (not in a bad way) sounding piano/synth bit, with some heavy 80's influence. Something you'd hear in a serious film from that time, and I would not be surprised to hear if they'd actually stolen it from a movie soundtrack. The band don't give off an aura of modern (or medieval, or evil, or etc.) black metal really...so I guess this is fitting.
All in all an excellent album. Very deep, there's nothing simple or straight-forward here, and for fans of simple music this will be a difficult listen. This will appeal to fans of Forgotten Woods, Burzum, or even Celtic Frost. People constantly accuse me of being too rigid when it comes to how black metal should sound, but I fully accept the music on this CD. It's interesting, dark, and highly enjoyable on a certain level. Although labeled Burzum rip-offs in the past, I think this nicely proves those very accusers wrong, since Joyless do have a mind of their own.
Some things to note though:
i) Why the picture of a toilet????
ii) What is that vile sound near the end of track 6?? It sounds like they recorded a chicken being tortured!!
© 1998 brand