This is Baron Drakkheim Abaddon’s infamous "grim medieval wamphyric black metal" band from United States. Most of the material on this album is re-recorded tracks from their first album "Vampyr - Throne of the Beast". I haven’t had the opportunity to study that album, so I do not know the worth of this record to those who own it. However, Black Funeral is certainly the most impressive black metal band from US that I have heard, with the possible exception of Absu. Black Funeral obviously will not get attention from mainstream black metallers because of their fanaticism and trueness, but this is certainly recommended, if not a MUST, to everyone initiated into the deeper layers of musical hell. The sound is typically underproduced, and I must compliment this, as the name of the studio (Dungeons of Cachtice), certainly reflects the sound. Cold, grim, reverbed and eerie. The individual elements here are unremarkable. The drumming is un-technical but not off tempo, the riffs are random and sloppy at times, occasionally melodic. The vocals are distant wraithlike screams that emphasize the unliving nature of this material. With these elements, Black Funeral has captured something that is dead. Something that is death. The power of this album would be at it’s greatest in a chilly medieval dungeon, or possibly a graveyard. The cold Finnish winter, too, wasn’t at all harmful to my listening experience with this album! I could write for a long while about the relevance of death in the musical context of black metal, but that would be wasted here, as the communication is better done by the music itself.

© 1999 black hate