Lord Of Evil
Soldiers of Satan
[Berzerker]


I'm sure that a substantial number of you have heard of this band before (they're now called War 88), probably due to their extremist NS ideology. "Soldiers of Satan" is a collection of their demo material from 1993 and 1994 on one disc. The disc is supposedly limited to 555 copies as well, so I guess you could consider this to be a collector's item of sorts.

One problem that plagues me while doing this review is the fact that I can't really reference Lord of Evil's sound in terms of any other band, even though I find it reminscent of something that I just can't seem to put my finger on. The music is fairly basic, with solid drumming complementing simple (and usually uninteresting) chord progressions. There's a few decent songs here and there, but this disc doesn't really do much to hold my interest for any extended period of time. In addition to the basic crusty black metal approach, there's a few quick blasting songs, such as "Szatan," which could almost be considered to be more of a grindcore type affair. The production is raw but thick, and works out very well for this type of music. Even though I was bored to death by most of this material, I'd still be interested to hear what they come up with in the future, because they have a unique style as well as a hateful atmosphere going on here.

Sadly, I'd have to say that this is one of the cases where a band's ideology is much more interesting than the actual music that they play. In my opinion, it's basically nothing more than another limited release for the collectors out there.


© 1998 baalberith