Elite

Carbon & Elite Split
Agonia Records,
Genre: Black Metal

Carbon:
1. Descent
Elite:
2. Stanken av Hyklers Blod











Side Carbon: here
Side Elite:

Rather than have a demo tape Elite from Norway decides to introduce themselves through this split vinyl release.  Unfortunately it's only a 7" and one song per band, so we'll see what I can do with some sort of review of a single track.  This is limited to 333 hand-numbered copies, of which I have 256.

"Stanken av Hyklers Blod" opens with just guitar then the drums build the song into it's full form.  Elite definitely perform fairly traditional Black Metal.  In some ways Elite may not have come into their own sound just yet, as many bands do after nearly a decade of Black Metal production.  There's just so much that's already been done.  Furthermore it's hard to tell where Elite may go in the future based on hearing this single song.  For me this sounds like early Arckanum material blended with more of a Norwegian approach to the song writing.  This makes it sound a lot more straight forward rather than slightly twisted like a lot of Norwegian Black Metal can sound.  Or maybe you can compare to very early Gorgoroth material, which was pretty minimal, but I get a fairly distinct late 90's Swedish feel from Elite's first track.  I have no idea why this is, or if it is just me.

The production is basically alright.  It's done in such a way that the music feels pretty raw.  The vocals are a bit too loud in the mix.  I feel this is exemplified by the slightly distorted aspect the vocals have.  I really hope it was intentional rather than the vocalist peaking in the studio.  The guitars and drums are mixed very well together, so I have no complaints there.

Elite sounds like they could be a fairly good project.  They are just starting out and, like most bands now, they start off with the tried and true methods.  So Elite certainly sounds pretty good... but they are not offering anything new or compelling to the listener.  If you're looking for something with a mid-90's somewhat raw tone, then Elite would probably be a must hear if you loved that era.