It's releases like this that make me question whether or not black metal really has anything left to offer. Not that Negura Bunget (who hail from Romania - in case you care) are a bad band, but they're so painfully average I question why Breath of Night would bother to release this to begin with - surely there must be *something* else out there far more deserving of being put on CD. The main problem with "Zirnindu-Sa" (and a LOT of black metal coming out today) is the completely pointless use of synth - it's just NOT necessary and adds absolutely *nothing* to the music here...it fact, its gets in the way more than anything else, turning what could otherwise be a 1/2 decent song into a snorefest. Message to bands everywhere : DROP THE FUCKING KEYBOARDS! Do you really think that rudimentary synth lines played on bland patches add "atmosphere" ? No - all it does is rob the songs of any ferocity it might have had. Smarten the fuck up - Black Metal is about hatred, not about trying to figure out how to work in that 3 note casio-fueled progression. Fucking hell...anyway, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'll try to find something good to say about Negura Bunget. Well...the vocals are quite decent - I'd almost say excellent, especially on track 7, "Dupre Reci Imbre"...and in some places, I found the drum patterns to be interesting...but that's about all I liked on this CD - everything else (guitar tone, production, song writing, etc) was just bland and didn't stand out at all. Mind you, the fucking synth washed over everything far too often - perhaps underneath it all there were a few decent riffs here and there, but I'll be damned if I could find them (or be bothered to). Not worth picking up in my opinion - but then again, this kind of thing keeps getting released, so there must be some kind of demand for it. If you're into generic synth coated black metal, then pick this up as I suppose it's as good as anything else in this vein, but if you're like me and want to have all the synth "players" in black metal bands blindfolded and in front of a firing squad, avoid this.

© 1999 chorazaim