Ildjarn
Son Of The Northstar
[Full Moon]
As much as I can get over the long delays on the Lugubrum/Finsternis split, what Thorns has tried to pull with this is absolutely inexcusable. "Son of the Northstar" is nothing but a pathetic trendsucking rip-off attempt, utilizing everyone's current hype on someone that hardly anybody cared about a few years back, and the only thing I'm grateful about is that due to it intuitively sounding wrong from the start I didn't get suckered into acquiring my own copy. Hopefully this review will stop some others from making a bad purchase, and to those of you who have already gone ahead and ordered one, that's unfortunate, but live and learn I guess.
First of all, there was absolutely no prior mention of this only running for a total of 17 minutes, and since the s/t, Strength and Anger, Forest Poetry, and Det Frysende Nordariket all go to about 70 (the ambient Landscapes almost twice), that's an mcd any way you slice it and should already have you questioning the value of this (the exception of course would be Ildjarn-Nidhogg, but this is nowhere near as good as that was anyway). Does anyone else remember it being advertised as a "lost full-length?" Secondly, the first three of the constantly overhyped "unreleased" tracks appear on Det Frysende Nordariket itself, and I don't mean similarly, but in those exact formats - the final two are incomplete, being little more than a riff with no vocals whatsoever, and I'm pretty sure the first was used on the Norse EP. $12 for all of that? It might make a bit more sense if the "unreleased" songs had come from the s/t, but Det Frysende Nordariket and most of the other Ildjarn recordings are still not all that difficult to obtain, and each one of those is infinitely better than this is.
So how's the music? If you're looking to capture the incredibly minimalistic, raw, ugly, and primitive hate essence that is Ildjarn, this is the last place to do it. Strength and Anger on the other hand is black metal the way it was meant to be, and if what you want is a recording so ambiently dripping in sheer conviction it will eat you from the inside, it's difficult for me to recommend anything higher than that. Just don't think of "this" when you think of "Ildjarn."
In addition to everything else, the packaging is garbage and the cover is widely pixelated. "Son of the Northstar" is a fucking scam guys, and while it's true you could do much worse with your money, that's hardly a relative factor. Forest Poetry you can still get just about anywhere so if you absolutely must have something released by Ildjarn, go for that first.
© 2002 hando
First of all, there was absolutely no prior mention of this only running for a total of 17 minutes, and since the s/t, Strength and Anger, Forest Poetry, and Det Frysende Nordariket all go to about 70 (the ambient Landscapes almost twice), that's an mcd any way you slice it and should already have you questioning the value of this (the exception of course would be Ildjarn-Nidhogg, but this is nowhere near as good as that was anyway). Does anyone else remember it being advertised as a "lost full-length?" Secondly, the first three of the constantly overhyped "unreleased" tracks appear on Det Frysende Nordariket itself, and I don't mean similarly, but in those exact formats - the final two are incomplete, being little more than a riff with no vocals whatsoever, and I'm pretty sure the first was used on the Norse EP. $12 for all of that? It might make a bit more sense if the "unreleased" songs had come from the s/t, but Det Frysende Nordariket and most of the other Ildjarn recordings are still not all that difficult to obtain, and each one of those is infinitely better than this is.
So how's the music? If you're looking to capture the incredibly minimalistic, raw, ugly, and primitive hate essence that is Ildjarn, this is the last place to do it. Strength and Anger on the other hand is black metal the way it was meant to be, and if what you want is a recording so ambiently dripping in sheer conviction it will eat you from the inside, it's difficult for me to recommend anything higher than that. Just don't think of "this" when you think of "Ildjarn."
In addition to everything else, the packaging is garbage and the cover is widely pixelated. "Son of the Northstar" is a fucking scam guys, and while it's true you could do much worse with your money, that's hardly a relative factor. Forest Poetry you can still get just about anywhere so if you absolutely must have something released by Ildjarn, go for that first.
© 2002 hando