Satyricon

Satyricon - Ten Horns-Ten Diadems
Moonfog Productions, 2002
Genre: Black Metal

1. Filthgrinder
2. Dominions of Satyricon (Remastered)
3. Forhekset
4. Night of Divine Power (Remastered)
5. Hvite Krists Dod
6. Mother North
7. Supersonic Journey
8. Taakeslottet (Remastered)
9. Serpent's Rise
10. Repined Bastard Nation

Well it’s been ten years since Satyricon released the legendary demo “The Forest is My Throne.”  In these ten years we the listeners have been subjected to incredible album after incredible album.  Lately we’ve all seen Satyricon go into a slightly different musical direction ever since “Intermezzo II” was released.  Now they’ve begun to push the envelope of their creativity always striving for something newer and fresher.  A lot of the “too true” Black Metal fans see this as selling out, I on the other hand see this as a band who does not want to get stuck in a rut.  I suppose it would be different if they changed the core of their music from being Black Metal.  They are a band who is not satisfied to release one album after another of the same sound.

This is a great release to sum up their careers thus far.  This is filled with something new and something to show their incredible accomplishments over the years.  Even if you have every Satyricon release like I do, I would still suggest getting this, at least for the re-mastered versions of their earlier albums.  I was amazed at how big of a difference in the recording quality.  Normally I scoff at re-mastered material because it’s usually not much different from the original material.  I have no idea what Satyr and crew used to re-master the material, but it’s such a huge difference in quality.  It’s as if they recorded it in 2002 with all the new and updated technology.  Basically this should catch everyone’s eye, new and old fans alike.

This is packaged as a small box with a large full color booklet inside.  There’s only one CD so don’t let the box fool you into thinking there’s more than one like with Hypocrisy’s release in similar packaging.  Despite this fact the CD is very reasonably priced and well worth it.  The layout is beautiful and eye catching, which is pretty typical for a Nuclear Blast release.

There are two previously unreleased tracks on this album.  One was specifically written for the ten year anniversary, “Serpent’s Rise,” but to tell you the truth it’s nothing overly astounding.  Don’t get me wrong I think it’s a great song, but it’s one of those more experimental tracks that Satyr likes to put out every now and again.  Now the song being released on the upcoming “Volcano” album and put here as a preview called “Repined Bastard Nation” is simply an excellent song.  “Repined Bastard Nation” makes me want to hear even more of the “Volcano” album.  It has more of a rock n’ roll feel rather than the standard Black Metal style, so we’ll see how that develops in later albums.  A major surprise to me is the fact that the drumming on this song really isn’t that fast at all.  However that doesn’t take away from how good this song is. 

As a retrospective this is worth getting.  Rather than just put together a collection of “best of” we got remastered material and some unreleased material.  At least Satyricon had enough sense to give everyone something a little different to hear.  Maybe now they will re-master all the old albums… I wouldn’t be opposed to that in this case.