Graveland
In the Glare of Burning Churches
[No Colours]


This is the first CD I got from this cult Polish black metal band and it definitely did make it’s impression. It contains material from their demo ’93 and some 7”; this material has been released on annoyingly many different CDs, some or all of the 7” songs (different recordings of them however) are on ”The Celtic Winter” CD and the original ”In the Glare…” demo has just been released on limited CD with their earlier demo ”Epilogue”.

The mood here is HATE, primitive hate, destruction of churches, killing of priests, drinking blood in rites of evil and darkness, undeads and Hell. It’s so totally wicked black metal that it must be put up there in the pantheon of dark gods with the best of Darkthrone.

It all starts with an intro with crackling fire and a choir singing a folkish-sounding song and a scream sample repeated quite comically over and over again. Then the rusted-chainsaw guitar comes in, not quite in tempo but determined and raw enough to kill with it’s mere sound and when Capricornus starts drumming, it is understandable for even a brutal pagan warrior to faint. Capricornus’ beats on this album are pure GENIUS. They have nothing to do with tempo or the way drums are usually played on rock records, it’s simply tribal and primal pounding on the drums in a way that is very insensible, but quite sensual. When he starts doing double bass, it’s so fucked up that you start wondering why people like that are not thrown immediately to madhouses in a christian society.

Darken has apparently stuck a couple of knives in his throat to aid his vocal performance for these recordings and his pronunciation of the words has excited some as being beyond simply ”brutal”, it’s METAL the way old Polish thrashers Astaroth did it. This is sick!

Most likely there is no bass on this recording, but it is not needed. The guitars work very well their way through the complex and artful pagan hymns, emphasized by some keyboards with very forceful, grand themes appearing in the tremendous climax points of the music, in a release of fury; the moment when the lighted match reaches the gasoline-drenched altar and the eyes of the wotanik warrior are momentarily blinded by the flames reaching to grasp the feet of the pitiful image of INRI.

I doubt there is anything more to be said about this. It’s very addictive. It’s larger than life.


© 1999 black hate