Beherit – At the Devil’s Studio 1990

June 15, 2011 –
No comments

I am really glad this recording is not the final form these songs took, but I am equally glad to be able to hear them in this form. Most people will compare this to The Oath of Black Blood, but it reminds me more of the later EPs, although it’s in the style of The Oath of Black Blood.

On those later EPs Beherit experimented with the sonic form of its material, not changing the song structures as much as the pacing and the use of guitar noise, drone and other techniques. What emerged on the Osmose release of The Oath of Black Blood (a compilation of demos assembled by the label into an album) was more monolithic and primitive, in the raw style of Blasphemy which was inherited almost certainly from a cross between early Bathory and early Napalm Death.

But some time later what came forth on Drawing Down the Moon removed the chaos in favor of a clear, simple, direct and ominously infectious statement of power; it matured, for lack of a better word, and cut out the ambiguity to make a purposeful and morbid statement of dark power.

At the Devil’s Studio attempts to take the early monolithic style and tweak it sonically to gain effect, and it does so by making a dark immersive world of hanging sheets of resonant sound, but it loses the sinister abstraction and aloofness of the second album.

However, it gives these songs a new dimension, and makes it like hearing them for the first or second time, which alone will induce me to buy this thing and keep it close at hand.

-Brett Stevens-

Impaled Nazarene – Ugra Karma

November 27, 2009 –
No comments

Ugra-Karma_49005aa435680Following up the band’s debut album Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz, Impaled Nazarene opened the silo once again to release their deadliest missile of truly Brahmastric proportions with 1993′s Ugra Karma. Roughly translating from the original Sanskrit into ‘bad actions’, the album’s title indicates the nature of this distinctive blend of Punk, Black Metal and other styles and sounds, as a dance of destruction atop the accumulated filth of the modern world. The updated artwork of a hooved, nuclear Nataraja performing this world-ending ritual over desecrated damsels and making occult gestures in front of an inverted pentagram takes this idea further in a profound hybrid of apocalyptic Hindu and Satanic imagery which also heavily underlies the musical approach of Ugra Karma. The deep, muscular bass-work in these anthems of armageddon give power to aggressive and militarised Punk-like guitar riffs imbued with a majestic, Black Metal sense of melodicism and pace. Their target is in sights, the riffs transform imminently like the complexion of a scene changing upon the arrival of Harrier squadrons from over the horizon, to rain hell on harmless victims! It’s these simple and incredibly conclusive narratives that give each song such a depth of expression, with the finality of a Vedic chant. Drums are overbearing and industrious in their sound, maintaining a constant beat that drills the blasphemous, mystical revelations of doom into the listener with a Nazistic authority, leading a new SS to purge the world of its undesirables. Impaled Nazarene present with all of their hatred not only the downfall of the world they despise, but the primal law which will bring that land of light and love to its knees, sodomise it and replace it with evil.

- ObscuraHessian-

November Reviews: Neutron Hammer, The Stone, Worship, Gehenna

November 22, 2009 –
No comments

Neutron Hammer – Extermination Kommand

A short and sweet five song EP by Neutron Hammer sees these young Finns tackle a simple, tried yet tested formula, typical of what we expect from retrograde black/death/thrash hybrids, seemingly with the only intention to rehash and rekindle lost memories of something many once saw as ‘true’. With a sharp and clear production that conveys great energy within the constraints of mostly verse/chorus song structures, Neutron Hammer often have a similar charge to their music not unlike Australian nostalgics Vomitor and Spear Of Longinus, though compacted to an catchy, anthemic mode that fits the early, primitive works of Impaled Nazerene and Beherit. Excellent work, and also worth watching if you can catch a live performance.

The Stone – Magla

Serbian black metallers The Stone create an epic work that resembles Texan act Averse Sefira, as both bands combine death metal riffing with Norwegian styled harmonies. The differences here are that the melodies are more obvious to untrained ears and we get much more variation in tempos. Amidst this framework there is a crepitating NWOBHM influence in the guitar work, laid beneath a sheen of violent, modern black metal phrasings. One of the best releases to come out of Eastern Europe since the turn of the recent millennium.

Worship – Last CD Before Doomsday

Reissued on CD format five years after being issued on cassette in 1999, Worship play in a funeral doom style that takes on the amelodic, sluggish, death-doom riffing of Thergothon and the suicidal themes and eclectic ambiences of fellow Germans Bethlehem. This lacks the sense of continuity that makes bands like Skepticism great, often losing its momentum in its search of unfathomable dirges of gloom, though this is no means to suggest it is a bad work, it still has its moments of quality.

 

Gehenna – First Spell

A minor classic of Norwegian black metal, Gehenna’s debut full length contains five songs that combine simple, punky chords and tremolo picked guitar harmonies amidst a backdrop of haunting, etheareal keyboards. Unlike most bands who have unsuccessfully tried to execute this ‘gothic’ variant of black metal, Gehenna clearly understand quality control, and whilst they allowed this aesthetic to play a key role in what you hear on the surface, it is kept in moderation and doesnt outweigh the artistic beauty on offer. If you are looking for something that triumphs where acts such as Cradle Of Filth handicapped their own potential, one should find it all here. Simple, imaginative, majestic and consistent, this is a highly recommended release.

Written by Pearson