Reviews for Black Metal, Death Metal and some Ambient! The concept behind this site is to do full discography reviews. I will do my best to track down an entire discography to celebrate a band's evolution. I'm pretty strict on sticking to those genres, so please don't request I review something else. I also buy the vast majority of all the things I review and I don't really take promos from labels or demos from bands. If you're worth hearing, I will probably find you.
Torgeist - Time of Sabbath
Self-released, 1995
Genre: Black Metal
1. March of Black Assemblies
2. Sweet Death
3. Flame of Hate
4. My Soul for Your Victory
5. Bloody Tears
6. Time of Sabbath
As with a lot of the other LLN material, by the time we got to 1995 things have improved a bit. As before "Time of Sabbath" was originally released as a demo tape, but I missed out on that as well, so I only have the 2008 Drakkar CD edition. The rip from the demo tape isn't as good as the first demo tape, weirdly enough. The original tape probably suffered from being played too much, since this is the better release.
"Time of Sabbath" is not as much of a dramatic improvement as some of the other LLN projects as they put material together in 1995, but it is an improvement over "Devoted to Satan". The demo opens with some Mortiis inspired dungeon synth, which is a major improvement over the spoken word bits. The music feels darker and more intense. Torgeist doesn't play around with weird dissonant pieces, instead favoring a far more straight forward approach. Some parts of this release made me think of early Gorgoroth in their style. "Time of Sabbath" both the album and song feel a lot heavier than other LLN releases as well and again the riffing has parts that remind me of that grinding style Gorgoroth pulls off.
I feel like this project is a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the LLN projects, it certainly has the best drumming of any of them, so that's a stand out feature of Torgeist. There's also quite a bit of energy in the music on this demo, which is a bit different from the melancholic, almost depressive, feeling of a lot of the other LLN bands. In the end I thought "Time of Sabbath" was an excellent demo and it uses that raw production to it's advantage. So, if you want to check out one of the better projects from the LLN I definitely recommend this one. Some may find it too samey to Black Metal that already exists, but I still think Torgeist did a good job with this demo.
Torgeist - Devoted to Satan
Self-released, 1994
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro
2. Follow Him
3. Devoted to Satan
4. Dark Place
5. Evil Prevails
6. Outro
Torgeist is one of the stranger bands in the Les Légions Noires because they don't record at the LLN studio and their Black Metal is a lot more straightforward. It's not the weird and twisted kind of Black Metal found in the other projects. As with the other LLN material, this was originally released to a limited edition demo tape. I missed out on that original release, so I managed to pick up the 2008 CD when Drakkar repressed the material.
Torgeist's debut feels rather similar to something like Darkthrone or Moonblood, but even simpler and more raw than either of those projects. There is also a decent dose of Punk or Thrash Metal styled riffing thrown in. It's not too bad for a first demo, some of the songs are pretty catchy, but I wouldn't say they are particularly memorable in the grand scheme of things. Torgeist just play straight forward raw Black Metal on this release. Even for its time in 1994 it wasn't really anything revolutionary or strange because many bands from elsewhere were already building on this sound. At this point in time, other bands have done this sound better, but it's a pretty solid place to start for a new project. The only outright awful parts of this recording are the spoken word parts over the ambient sections. Those just sound, well... childish. They don't sound evil or foreboding, they just sound kind of dumb compared to the rest of the music.
In the end the first Torgeist is certainly worth hearing, at least once, but I'm not sure if it has a lot of replay value over the years. It may be worth waiting for something more solid to come along, but if you're a fiend for that raw Black Metal edge then I'm sure this will be a must listen for anyone that falls into that description.
Black Murder - Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul
Le Mond Mort Records, 1999
Genre: Black Metal
Promo 1994:
1. My Satanic Hatred
2. Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul Feasts:
3. Deadsex
4. Fresh Flesh
5. The Last Supper
6. Tower of Tortured Ones
7. Interlude
8. Charnel Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul:
9. Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul
Giving up on tracking down an actual copy of these demos I've resorted to seeing if the bootleg market had anything, since it doesn't seem Drakkar is going to be releasing the Black Murder material anytime soon. I came across this old CD-R version which compiled all the Black Murder material on a single release. They actually did a pretty good job putting this together. The transfer of the original material came out fairly well.
The major reason I wanted this wasn't for the 1994 demo, but for their 1995 demo called "Feasts". Where the first demo kind of fell flat, "Feasts" is really quite excellent! I don't know what happened between the first demo and this one, but they really got their recording quality under control and the drums are much better this time around. Black Murder have managed to put together some very dark and moody sounding Black Metal with really excellent atmosphere. It has this strange disturbing dissonant quality underlying a lot of the songs. This is one of the reasons I think LLN had a pretty large impact on the French Black Metal scene, because a large portion of the Black Metal bands following in the footsteps of these projects often like to play around with similar layers of dissonant riffing. It has a bizarre twisted feel to it that you can't really find in too many other places. The final song on here is a re-recording of a song originally found on "Promo 1994" and what a huge difference the production makes. In this recording you can actually tell the song was actually pretty decent.
In the end "Feasts" is really the release that makes Black Murder worthwhile and I would really love to see Drakkar re-release the material in full. They're re-releasing so much of the other LLN stuff, that I would love to see this one get out there. It beats having all kinds of stupid poorly ripped bootlegs out there. I'd certainly by an official copy of the Black Murder material. Maybe someday...
Black Murder - Promo 1994
Self-released, 1994
Genre: Black Metal
1. My Satanic Hatred
2. Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul
I've enjoyed raw Black Metal for quite some time and there are few projects out there even remotely as raw as what the groups in the Les Légions Noire were putting out. Black Murder is one of the massive amount of side projects. It was never a main project, but it did release a couple great demos. The first release was only a two song demo. I feel like these guys got together and just wrote music and if it didn't fit with a current project they made up a new one and here we have Black Murder as a result. As you can tell by the cover of my tape, it's not a real copy, I definitely have a bootleg. I do have some real LLN releases, but this isn't one of them.
Like many of the LLN projects it's a rather sloppy foray into somewhat haphazard Black Metal. Some of the riffs and atmosphere are really interesting, but sometimes things are just inaudible and then the drums just get sloppy. In "My Satanic Hatred" I want to assume whoever is playing drums is stopping frequently because they can no longer hear the music. Despite all this noise, they do come up with some pretty solid ideas. The acoustic aspects in "Those Dark Desires that Torment My Soul" worked really well.
Overall the first demo is almost too much of a mess to be truly enjoyable. The drums are extremely sloppy and even the "blast beats" just sound ridiculous. The first Black Murder promo is probably a miss for me, a few good ideas on here can't carry the tape very far.
Evilfeast - Elegies of the Stellar Wind
Eisenwald Tonschmeide, 2017
Genre: Black Metal
1. The Second Baptism... Shores in Fire and Ice
2. Winter Descent's Eve... I Become the Journey
3. Lunar Rites... Beholding the Towers of Barad-Dur
4. From the Northern Wallachian Forest... Tyranny Returns
5. Archaic Magic... A Cenotaph Below the Cursed Moon
6. Inclinata Resurgit... Rebirth of My Noble Dark Kingdom
When Eisenwald announced they were releasing the new Evilfeast I was extremely excited for this. Just looking at their cover choice just immediately pulls you into the album. The booklet design for the prior albums was okay and worked, but with Eisenwald pressing this they went in for a little more detail and what a beautiful booklet and layout. It features very compelling pictures that work with each song in a wonderful way. Remember though, make sure you have over an hour to devote to listening to this album, which is the standard for Evilfeast material.
It's interesting to note that GrimSpirit spent a lot more time working on this material than his other full-lengths, because we have quite a long break between now and the last full-length. However, that time was clearly well spent, because these are, by far, the best Evilfeast compositions I've ever heard. This album is truly a master work for GrimSpirit, and while I've always enjoyed the material he really pushed himself on this release. The atmosphere and guitar riffs are all top notch and I won't be surprised to see this hit my top 10 for 2017 at all. He's managed to incorporate so many different influences into a single album, that it's like listening to the best riffs of the past history of Black Metal, but all recast in a way that only Evilfeast really knows how! His tracking and drum performance have improved dramatically over the years to the point where his performance is extremely spot on and sometimes quite varied and creative. He's even incorporating some intense atmospheric moments in sections, such as in "Lunar Rites... Beholding the Towers of Barad-Dur" where I hear distinct Darkspace/Paysage d'Hiver styled moments between the keyboards and guitars. The droning blasting just amplifies feel of those projects. Then we also have some incredible riffs featured on "Winter Descent's Eve... I Become the Journey" that just hook you in right away. That song ended way too soon for such a lengthy track.
Another aspect that is a bit different is there are no stand alone ambient tracks. GrimSpirit moved away from those on "Lost Horizons of Wisdom", but with the promo, I thought maybe he would bring them back. So, I was surprised to see the Ambient moments more built into the songs themselves, which I think works a lot better for Evilfeast. We'll even hear elements of acoustic passages added into the music, such as with songs like "From the Northern Wallachian Forest... Tyranny Returns". This all before moving into one of the most Gorgoroth riffs I've ever heard him compose. This song also has some of the clean vocal styles we heard on "Invoking the Ancient". I like the fact that he uses them quite sparingly and only in moments that work well with the music. He's clearly going for a bit of a Garm feel with the vocal performance and I'm certainly not about to complain about that.
In the end we really do have the finest Evilfeast release, in my opinion. This is just so over the top excellent compared to the prior releases, that this will probably turn into my "go to" Evilfeast album when I'm interested in listening to their music. If you've been a long running fan of the project, I'm sure you won't be disappointed, but I'd recommend any fan of long atmospheric works to check out this release. It has a lot on here to satisfy a lot of moods. Now the real challenge... can he top this for the next Evilfeast release? I'll be surprised if he does, but I always look forward to hearing more from this project.
Evilfeast - Promo Tape 2015
Funeral Sound Productions, 2015
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro
2. A Cenotaph Below the Cursed Moon
3. Outro
It's been a couple years since we've heard from Evilfeast and perhaps Grimspirit decided to show off some in process work for things to come or to just put material out there in search of a new label to work with. Either way, here we have a single song demo tape. This comes with a pro-printed cover and a dubbed tape. It's limited to 150 hand-numbered copies and I own #22.
The track Evilfeast is showcasing here has a bit of a lo-fi quality to it production wise, which is a bit different than we've gotten used to as Grimspirit has been increasing his production value quite a bit lately. So, it's interesting to feel a step back and get a slightly more raw product, but as with his newer material it works in either format. The music is similar to what we heard on "Wintermoon Enchantment", but it feels like he's progressed the feel and beauty of his songwriting even more this time around. If this is an indicator of things to come, I think we're in for something quite special with the next release from Grimspirit. I'm glad we were able to hear something in process, just to get a glimpse of things to come.
Evilfeast - Invoking the Ancient
Obscure Abhorrence Productions, 2013
Genre: Black Metal
1. Invoking the Ancient
2. The Nine Ghosts (Osculum Infame cover)
This is a somewhat unusual release for Evilfeast since Grimspirit doesn't really release one off tracks that much. He did that with "Wolves of Hyperborean Frost" so maybe we're seeing a new promotional thing with this artist. The interesting thing with these releases is the cover songs, which won't appear on any of his full-lengths. In the past Evilfeast has been pretty focused on releasing tape editions of this type of material, but for this release he turned to Obscure Abhorrence to release a special 10" vinyl limited to 300 copies. While they were at it, they also pressed a vinyl version of the "Wolves in Hyperborean Frost" demo tape. I'm actually surprised these things aren't hand-numbered!
The song "Invoking the Ancient" is of similar high quality to the prior album. This time, however, he's thrown a bit more into the mix. With this song there's a couple sections that have clean chanting styled vocals. Anytime he delves into that section of the song I get a distinct Ulver vibe from the performance. It's actually very cool and I wouldn't be opposed to him throwing this into his music from time to time. Very few bands can pull off that old Ulver feel, but Evilfeast blended it into his usual repertoire quite well.
For the second track on this album Evilfeast turned to an Osculum Infame song originally released in 1997 on their album "Dor-Nu-Fauglith", even though I knew about the band at the time, I still missed out on that release and I regret it to this day. Ah well... Evilfeast did a really great job on this cover song. Grimspirit really managed to capture the atmosphere of their material and update the production quality a little bit more, so it was really nice to see this cast under the Evilfeast lens. I also enjoyed hearing Evilfeast cover some actual Black Metal material... maybe someday he'll do a cover of something off of Satyricon's "Dark Medieval Times".
Evilfeast - Wintermoon Enchantment
Nykta Records, 2011
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
1.Intro: Open the Mysteries from Beyond
2. Fullmoon Over the Eastern Woods
3. Tradition-Heritage-Destiny
4. The Wind & the Old Willows
5. Interlude: Passing the Meadows in Woe
6. Wolves of Hyperborean Frost
7. Summoning the Splendour Once Fallen
8. Outro: Descent into the Starlit Spheres
After getting a taste of what this album would sound like on the "Wolves of Hyperborean Frost" demo, I feel like I'm a bit more surprised at the overall presentation of this. This album really brings back the feel of some of the early 90's Black Metal in a way that I haven't heard in many years. This CD also comes with a very nicely designed booklet. Probably the nicest design so far in the Evilfeast discography. The booklet is also printed on full gloss paper, which got popular for some time in the Black Metal world, but I feel like it was popular before 2011.
"Wintermoon Enchantment" is definitely pushes the atmospheric boundaries quite a bit. I think this release also hearkens back to the mid-90's era of Black Metal quite a bit. As usual Evilfeast keeps the core Satyricon/Emperor build as the main backbone of his music, but on this album I feel like he shifts in some early Arcturus, early Gehenna and some Old Man's Child into the mix. There's probably some old Dimmu, but all those other bands are better. This Evilfeast album is quite a bit more intense than "Lost Horizons of Wisdom" and we rarely get the airy keyboard interlude in the midst of a track. Instead Grimspirit keeps the Black Metal flowing throughout the entirety of a song, which is probably why the intro, outro and interlude are strictly keyboard pieces. I actually like this format a little more and I think it works with the Evilfeast sound very well. Evilfeast is never really Ambient enough in the way something like Paysage d'Hiver is to really have that ominous Ambient break in the midst of a song that really builds back into a Black Metal onslaught. Instead each track is more focused on generating the atmosphere necessary to drive the song. The keyboards mainly serve to add that majestic atmosphere you'll hear with the Symphonic Black Metal bands, but Evilfeast is far more guitar driven and riff heavy by comparison.
As with the other releases this album spans well over an hour in listening time. However, I feel like the time is well spent and this is definitely one of the best albums in the Evilfeast discography as far as I'm concerned. It's certainly my favorite so far, because it manages to blend in all those elements I've been really wanting him to blend together. "Lost Horizons of Wisdom" really starts doing the blends I wanted, but I feel like "Wintermoon Enchantment" really refines the idea behind that and creates for a much more immersive and exciting listen. Definitely a high point for the Evilfeast discography so far!
Evilfeast - Wolves of Hyperborean Frost
Funeral Sound Productions, 2009
Genre: Black Metal
1. Wolves of Hyperborean Frost
2. Himmel aus Eis/Der tod Wuotans (Burzum cover)
After releasing some great material through record labels Evilfeast returned to the demo tape world a year after one of their best releases. This is kind of strange to me, but maybe Grimspirit was looking to experiment a bit more? This was originally released on Grimspirit's own label Funeral Sound Productions limited to 50 hand-numbered copies. It's no surprise I missed out on that and instead of the 10" vinyl edition published by Obscure Abhorrence in 2013 limited to 300 copies.
The first song is very similar to "Lost Horizons of Wisdom" and if this is an indicator for the next full-length I think we're going to all find that as good as the prior album. The main progression featured on this song reminds me of some other Scandinavian project, but I just can't remember it off the top of my head. Either way it's quite a good song and in line with the direction Evilfeast was developing on the last album. The production quality is a little lower, but that's probably because this was merely intended as a demo. After this on side B we have entirely Ambient material. It's somewhat of a curiosity, because the first part is an original Ambient piece and that immediately flows into a Burzum cover. Most bands would cover something from Burzum's metal material, but not Evilfeast, he's covering a track found on the infamous Ambient albums, this one being from "Hliðskjálf". Covering an ambient track is flat out unusual any way you look at it, so it's kind of interesting that Grimspirit went after this. He did a good job on it too for what it is. I'm not a very big fan of Burzum's Ambient material and Evilfeast's Ambient material is only okay as a stand alone. Like a lot of these bands, their ambience is best blended with the Black Metal guitars.
After hearing him do covers, I'd actually really love to hear Evilfeast cover something from Satyricon's "Dark Medieval Times", because I think he could really nail that atmosphere! In any event, if the Black Metal song on here is any indicator of the next album, then we'll all be looking forward to another great release from this project.
Evilfeast - Lost Horizons of Wisdom
Nykta Records, 2008
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal
1. Algol's Northern Lights
2. Grim Spirit, the Forest Wanderer
3. Cages of Cold Despondency
4. My Tower Among the Timeless Mountains
5. Lost Horizons of Wisdom
After the atrocious production issues with the Marblebog split, I was semi-worried about the next release. I was hoping Grimspirit would return to his standard form of the earlier albums and that's basically exactly what he did with "Lost Horizons of Wisdom". Even though there are only five tracks on this album, make sure you have some time to devote, because this release is over an hour in length. The shortest song clocks in at a mere 11 minutes! The booklet layout is much nicer this time around compared to the prior albums. In fact it kind of reminds me of the layout and design on a few Vinterriket releases.
"Lost Horizons of Wisdom" is actually an extremely well done and excellent album. Grimspirit finally did what I sort of wanted him to do, which is blend together his faster material with the slower more atmospheric style. This has added an interesting effect that it doesn't really sound exactly like Emperor/Satyricon blended together even though he's now playing closer to Emperor tempos. I think he also put some work into cleaning up his guitar tone a little bit, which is great, because I always thought his guitar sounded a bit fuzzy.
Musically this album trends a lot more into the realms of Atmospheric Black Metal than Evilfeast ever has before. With the increased speed and slight change in guitar tone, I feel like a lot more influence is coming from projects like Paysage d'Hiver and some of the German bands that play a more atmospheric sound. There is still the clear Emperor/Satyricon styled influence, but this album feels more and more like Evilfeast is striking out on their own and writing songs that are starting to feel a lot more unique in the annals of Black Metal. Some of the Ambient sections seem influenced by Vinterriket, which makes sense given the way the layout looks.
In the end, despite its length, I did find this a really worthwhile listen. Some people may find the album to be a bit overlong, but I really enjoyed every song, so I can't really complain. For me this is where the Evilfeast project really begins to take off. While the prior albums are good, there's just something about "Lost Horizons of Wisdom" that strikes a different atmosphere in some ways. In any event, if you wanted to hear Evilfeast's combination of speed and atmosphere, this is the album where they take that on and quite successfully.
Evilfeast & Marblebog - Isenheim/Abyss Calls...
Alles-Stenar, 2008
Genre: Black Metal
Evilfeast: Isenheim
1. Dawn of Winter
2. Isenheimen
3. My Journey into Cold Infinity Marblebog: Abyss Calls...
4. Hiv a Mélység
5. Keresés
6. Ébredj!
7. Csendhajnal
Side Marblebog: ...coming eventually...
Side Evilfeast:
After a rather no-frills album like "Funeral Sorcery" it was interesting to see this split open with an ambient track that is over six minutes long. After that the Black Metal hits in with "Isenheimen". I don't know what in the world happened, but this album's production is way worse than the other releases. I feel like Grimspirit was trying to get the drums to sound better in the mix or at least more prominent compared to "Funeral Sorcery", but he fell into a trap with the snare drum. There's this annoying frequency his snare is emitting and it's just taking over the entire mix. He also seems to have some other issues, because parts of the drum mix have this weird "whooshing" sound when he goes into the blast beats. Either way, it just crushes the experience for me, it's not one of those good raw production things, its a distracting one. I understand the desire to close mic the snare... but figuring out how to control that takes a little while. In any event it's really mainly problematic when you play fast, so the song "Isenheim" gets drowned out. "My Journey into Cold Infinity" is a great deal slower, so the offending snare frequencies are not as much of a problem here.
The song "Isenheim" is similar to what we heard on "Funeral Sorcery" and "My Journey into Cold Infinity" feels more like a far slower version of a song that could have found its way onto "Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest". In the grand scheme of things, the actual full-lengths are far better, in my opinion. Evilfeast's music on here is well composed, but ruined by poor production moves. Hopefully Grimspirit will sort this drum mixing issue out on future albums, because it would be a shame to have a full-length marred in this way.
Evilfeast - Funeral Sorcery
Funeral Sound Productions, 2005
Genre: Black Metal
1. Funeral Sorcery
2. I Reach the Winter Twilight
3. Krone aus kalten sternen
4. Tale of Carpathian Wind
5. Iconoclast Eminence
6. Im schatten der majestät des eistodes
This is the second album from Evilfeast and it was originally released on tape by Grimspirit's own label limited to 300 hand-numbered copies. However, a CD edition of this was released in 2008 by Alles Stennar and that's the version I own. The liner notes say this music was composed between February and May, which is a pretty quick turn around for Grimspirit and the music is a little different compared to what came before. I almost wonder if this was originally intended as some kind of demo or a different approach to music he wanted to play.
The biggest difference you'll notice right away is how fast this music is. It seems, to me, he was trying to delve into the faster albums from Satyricon and Emperor and "Funeral Sorcery" results in being a pretty fast blast beat friendly album. Maybe he just wanted to push the speed envelope as a musician to see if he could do it! I've done that before, because if you can play very fast accurately, you can also play at all the tempos below that speed and it gives you a lot more room to work on your music. Sometimes the drums feel a little sloppy in places, so I think he might be pushing his personal speed limit a bit much on some tracks, but it's not horrifically annoying. Another thing you'll notice about this album is how far back the keyboards are in the mix for this. The guitars are extremely loud by comparison and this album feels like a far more guitar driven release than we seem to usually get from Evilfeast. The keyboards are still there, certainly, but they're also used a lot more sparingly. When they do show up, I think they actually sit a bit better in the mix, because they don't feel nearly as overpowering and instead add a nice blend to the guitar work. Unfortunately, the guitars being this much louder in the mix means the drums got kind of buried in the mix, you can still hear the snare and ride pretty well... but a lot of other aspects of the drums are just gone. Ah well... it's really hard to mix acoustic drums, so clearly he's still experimenting.
Now the thing I would love to hear at this point is a blend of the prior albums with this new faster style. "Funeral Sorcery" sounds a lot meaner compared to the prior Evilfeast releases, even the riffing has taking on a rather drastic viciousness at times compared to the prior albums. However, Grimspirit still manages to craft a really excellent Black Metal atmosphere blending all this material together. It's really another great album from this project.
Evilfeast - Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest
Old Legend Productions, 2004
Genre: Black Metal
1. Ode to a Rising Fullmoon (Intro)
2. Immerse into Cold Mist
3. Thy Woods are Sacred
4. Towards the Funeral Winternight Landscape
5. Solitude Apotheosis
6. Descending Winds of Holocaust
7. The Black Heavens Open
8. Morbid Rejoice
9. Desolate Fields Left (Outro)
After a really excellent demo, it's great to see Evilfeast get the full-length treatment. After such an excellent demo, it's not too surprising to see a CD release next in line for this project, because I certainly wanted to hear more after the first listen. The booklet is pretty simple, which is fairly common for a first release at this time, but given the fact that Old Legend Production released some really good stuff, I wound up having a lot of the CD's they put out.
"Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest" picks up where the demo leaves off, but it gets a little more elaborate by comparison. Everything is in that same style we loved before, but Grimspirit has just gotten better at crafting the songs and recording them. It looks like he wrote a lot of material in the 90's and finally built a home recording studio in the early 2000's to record the music he wrote. After two more years of engineering practice he's gotten a little better at it. The recording feels dense though, similar to how Emperor sounded in the early days, which you'd expect with such a large amount of things going on. I think Grimspirit tried to model his guitar tone after "In the Nightside Eclipse" as much as possible. It's not the greatest guitar tone out there, but when the keyboards and drums break and its just the guitar in some sections you can really tell how closely he nailed that "In the Nightside Eclipse" vibe with his material. Granted Grimspirit is not Faust or Trym behind the drum kit, but he might not have been playing drums nearly as long as those guys, but what he does works with his arrangements. Just don't expect any blistering intense speed or elaborate drum lines. Now "Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest" isn't all Emperor worship, to me this is really a blend of Satyricon and Emperor, just imagine Satyricon with more keyboard work. I mean just listen to the guitar line in "The Black Heavens Open" and listen to how much that sounds like "Dark Medieval Times". The fact that he's been able to blend these two bands together so well and create a style that feels entirely different, meanwhile paying clear homage to these great bands is really wonderful.
So, if you like the idea of "Dark Medieval Times" blended with "In the Nightside Eclipse" then this is certainly a must listen. Sometimes these blended albums give way to a wholly unique sound and that may happen with Evilfeast on future releases, and if that ends up being the case I do wonder how much this album will stand the test of time. I've enjoyed it over the years since it was released, but it's not an album I pull out that often to listen to. However, any time it comes up and I listen to it, I really do enjoy the album, so I guess it has held up well over the years.
Evilfeast - Thy Abhorrent Emerging
Funeral Sound Productions, 2002
Genre: Black Metal
1. Inner Dark Spheres
2. Moribund Chanting
3. Entering the Forest of Old Wisdom
I originally missed out on this demo when it was first released, but I was lucky enough to later track it down. At first I stayed away from this band because their name is just so ridiculous and I assumed the music probably wasn't going to be very good. However, it turns out that Evilfeast play some extremely excellent Black Metal and once I finally got a copy of their music I've been buying up everything I can from the project ever since! This tape is where it all began and it's limited and hand-numbered, but no limitation amount is mentioned. I have #262 and it was released on Grimspirits own record label, which seems to only have two bands, Evilfeast tapes and the Polish band Revenge.
According to the tapes liner notes this music was composed between 1997 and 2002, which is quite a long time to compose three songs. Don't be fooled though, even though there are only three songs, there is still over a half-hour of music to listen to. Once you delve into one song, the demo keeps up that basic feel for the entire listen. "Inner Dark Spheres" begins with a dark keyboard introduction, before blasting us away with fast and intense Black Metal. The music most closely reminds me of Emperor's "In the Nightside Eclipse", but I don't think Grimspirit's keyboard arrangements are nearly as elaborate as Ihsahn's... but few people are. The keyboard arrangements are more akin to Dungeon Synth, which is great, because it adds an interesting feel underneath the blasting Black Metal. The programmed drums give it a bit of a Paysage d'Hiver feel and even a Mysticum feel, because everything is so raw as well. In fact, I would say the music is a bit of a blend between Emperor and Paysage d'Hiver, but you'll hear influences from all over on here. "Moribund Chanting" has a moment that is basically Satyricon worship, so this project has a lot of great moments involved. The demo tends to trend heavier on the Scandinavian side of things with moments from Arcturus and Ulver showing up... there's probably some Dimmu Borgir influence on here, but, frankly, I think Evilfeast sounds a lot better than that and a lot meaner in some of the riffing design. I'm hesitant to call this Symphonic Black Metal, because the music is very clearly guitar driven, like Emperor, rather than more keyboard driven like Dimmu Borgir.
Right now he's clearly playing around with his core influences and I'm interested to see how this project will progress as Evilfeast takes on a more unique sound of its own. Grimspirit is clearly a competent musician and these songs are actually really well done overall, especially for a first demo. After hearing this I'm looking forward to hearing what else Evilfeast might produce in the future!
Graupel - Am Pranger...
Ván, 2010
Genre: Black Metal
1. Daemonicum
2. Das Blutende Mal
3. Schwarze Feder
4. Herkünfte Schatten
5. Kalte Fessel
6. Ekel
7. Entgeistert (Outro)
Graupel may not release music very often, but when they do it is always an excellent event. Here we have a new full-length from the band and it is by far one of the best album released in that year. This time they put the album out on Ván and they've done wonderful things with the packaging. This comes with a really beautiful slipcase and a booklet printed on extremely heavy paper with an excellent design layout that fits the aesthetics of this album perfectly.
"Am Pranger..." is an excellent follow-up to "Auf Alten Wegen...", it really advances the sound and ideas brought forth on that album. We have everything we loved about the debut, the vicious intensity, the atmospheric moments and the wonderfully catchy riffs that somehow work amidst Black Metal this violent sounding. Production wise I think they took a step back a little to make things more organic and raw, which is perfect. The production is closest to the split with Endstille and it's really the perfect production for a band like Graupel. Zingultus went all out on the vocals this time around and we have a lot of varied moments from him. This album really showcases his range as a vocalist and it's great because a lot of Black Metal vocals tend to be rather monotonous. I wonder if this vocal performance really solidified the idea of him taking over as Endstille's frontman when Iblis stepped down. I think everyone will be interested to note how "Herkünfte Schatten" opens and remember to compare it to an early Old Man's Child song found on either "In the Shades of Life" or "Born of the Flickering"... I swear it's almost the exact same thing! Granted Graupel change things up a lot and it's really just the opening riff that sounds similar to Old Man's Child, but pretty cool homage either way. The only kind of weird thing is the over seven minute ambient outro. It fits, but, frankly, I'd rather have another song from the band.
In the end this is one of the better Black Metal albums out there of this style. Graupel do an excellent job of putting a lot of pieces together that you wouldn't think fit that well together and make it work extremely well. Graupel releases new music very rarely, so we'll probably have a long wait if we hear from this project again... however, based on the past efforts I think it's going to be worth the wait.
Graupel & Endstille - Lauschangriff...
Pranger Produktionen/Nordische Stahlwerke, 2006
Genre: Black Metal
Graupel:
1. Im Hause Escharra
2. Blutvoyeurisus
3. Westradikal Endstille:
4. Battles Against the North
5. Your Love is Infectious
6. To Conquer the Sun
This split is probably one of the best splits in my entire collection. A lot of splits I buy because I like one of the bands and then the other band is something I've never heard of and it's not very good. Splits like this one are a different story though, this is the collaboration of two really excellent projects. So, naturally, as soon as I saw this announced, I immediately ordered a copy for myself. This split is on 12" vinyl only and limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, which I own #401.
After a fairly intense debut album from Graupel, this split continues very nicely where the album leaves off. I think the tracks are a little more raw than even the album recording and they actually sound a lot more similar to Endstille's style of production. It was surprising to have "Im Hause Escharra" start off with a very slow styled guitar line, but before long the song picks up and we're back at what Graupel does best, in my opinion anyway. The Graupel tracks march a long at a blistering pace and they have that vicious intensity I've come to expect from the project. They really worked on songs with no frills for this split, so that when the Endstille side begins it feels like the projects fit together quite nicely. This is not something we usually get with splits, usually one side sounds vastly different from the other, but in this case it feels like a more cohesive album and I really appreciate that. So, if you're a fan of both of these projects and are in the mood for some intense Black Metal, then this split will not steer you wrong! Great work from both projects.
Graupel - Auf alten Wegen...
Cold Dimensions, 2005
Genre: Black Metal
1. Heimkehr
2. Saat Zieht Zeit
3. Die Notglocke
4. Der alte Weg
5. Requies Filii
6. Soll und Sein
7. Von der Gunst zur Schelte
8. Glück der Söhne
9. Ein Sterbelied auf Metall
10. Blutend Weiß
Here we finally arrive at the debut full-length from this project. I think this is actually the first thing I heard from the band and the main reason I picked this up was because everything Cold Dimension puts out is good, so I figured this would be no exception. In that regard it certainly wasn't and ever since I got this album when it was originally released I've continued to enjoy listening to it. Graupel is a band that manages to get a fair amount of frequent play form me even decades later!
The debut is pretty much everything I wanted a studio recording of Graupel to sound like after hearing the first two releases. This album is extremely well done, because they've managed to strike a really excellent balance between intensity and atmosphere. The album manages to maintain that intense and violent performance we heard on the earlier Graupel recordings, but they've also infused some level of really dark atmosphere into the mix. This means we don't get an entire blast fest for an album, but instead a very dynamic listen as the moods shift between extremely violent to really somber with songs like "Requies Filii". Even amidst the intensity they still have some extremely catchy riffing that really pulls the listener in wanting us to hear this stuff over and over again. The only sad part about the release is their bassist Gruel has left the project. I don't know what it was about his bass setup, but it really managed to cut through the mix and make everything sound so much heavier and more intense.
So if you're looking for an intoxicating and intense listen, this is an excellent album to delve into. There really isn't a single bad song on here and the production is pretty well done. It doesn't feel noisy or overly raw, you can hear everything pretty well in the mix too. The album still manages to maintain that real instrument organic feel as well, so its a really well done release overall.
Encomium & Graupel Split
Westwall Produktion, 2004
Genre: Black Metal
Encomium:
1. Ashes of a Thousand Years
2. To Burn the Temple of Moral Graupel:
3. Weiß wie Schnee
4. Seelenkampf
Side Encomium: ...coming eventually...
Side Graupel:
The next release under the Graupel name is a split 7" with Encomium. Apparently this was originally supposed to be released by Sombre Records, but they never managed to get it out. I'm sure this is limited in some fashion, but there is nothing stated anywhere on what the limitation could be. It's probably 500 copies, which is fairly standard for vinyl of this nature. It also comes with an insert with lyrics and other liner notes. It's basically a nicely printed 8 and half by 11 piece of paper though, not an actual poster of any kind.
Graupel present us with an entirely new song to start us off and it's pretty much on par with what you'd expect after hearing "Als der Nebel..." It's more of that intense and violent style of Black Metal, however, they do manage to try and switch things up, because after about a minute and a half the song breaks into an atmospheric interlude and things take on a bit more atmospheric riffing. I think it would be interesting if Graupel managed to put this type of thing together more, marrying their intensity with a bit more atmospheric edge, because there isn't much out there like that. Then when they break into their catchier riffs, they tend to feel way heavier as well, with the bass thundering away at the groove. After that we're treated to a re-recording of the song "Seelenkampf" featured on their demo. The recording quality really isn't that much better than the original demo, so its not really adding that much more to the experience. However, it is cleaned up enough so you can get a far better feel for the song and it is certainly a great song, so I'm not surprised they wanted to redo it.
Graupel - Als der Nebel...
Self-Released, 2001
Genre: Black Metal
It seems Graupel has been a project for quite some time, but it was only in 2001 that it finally saw the light of day with a recording of any kind. I found out about this project through Zingultus' involvement, because I had followed Nagelfar and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I decided to take a look at what else he offered. "Als der Nebel..." was originally released as a self-released CD-R limited to 50 copies, which I missed out on, so I wound up with the cassette version released by Sombre Records in 2002 (pictured above).
Graupel plays raw and noisy vicious Black Metal on this demo. If you were expecting something similar to things like Nagelfar, it's not really like that. Sure the last song has a clean guitar tone that is somewhat reminiscent, but that's it. Graupel plays faster and far more violent Black Metal. They remind me a lot of what Endstille started doing in the same year. The music can sometimes take on a very militant feel with how vicious some of the riffs can sound. However, Graupel is a little different, they're not afraid to throw some real groove into their riffing. The entire song of "Kriegerherz" is basically an entirely groove laden song. It stands in contrast to such an intense and uncompromising demo, but at the same time it really works as a closer. It reminds me a lot of what Gorgoroth manages to pull off with their slower songs.
If you like your Black Metal raw and uncompromising then this is certainly a band to watch out for. The usual one complaint is that they could certainly clean up the noisy production a little bit, but we'll see what happens if they put out a full-length release.
Ciel Nocturne - Dernière Salve
Dernier Bastion, 2010
Genre: Black Metal
1. Crépuscule
2. Envers et contre tout
3. Ballade pour l'amie perdue
4. En l'abîme emmuré
5. Interlude
6. Dernière Salve
7. Triste plaisir et douloureuse joye
8. Spleen
9. Ciel Nocturne
10. Cuer qui en tel tristour demeure
This is the second album from Ciel Nocturne and it is, unfortunately, going to be their last effort. The good news here is that they went out on a rather high note with this being a pretty solid release. As with the others this is released on cassette only and limited to 200 hand-numbered copies, of which I own #199.
I can kind of understand why they decided to end the project with this album, the music is trending even more heavily into the Autarcie direction. So, with that realization it probably made sense to just focus on Autarcie at this point. "Dernière Salve" sends us down the LLN road even more than before, but they still manage to keep a bit of that melody in their music these musicians are famous for. But here we have a mixture of melody and that weird strained and dissonant styling heard on many LLN projects. The result is a fairly primitive feeling music, but still presented with a great deal of passion for the music. It has a raw and unbridled feel, especially with the really lo-fi production. Meanwhile, these two musicians have only improved their craft and they sound a lot tighter within their own music than ever before. The interplay between drums and guitar sync up far more often, whereas in prior releases sometimes things would meander off from time to time, but now they're more in line with each other.
On the one hand I would normally be sad to see this project end, just as they were striking out on a sound that was extremely good and far better than before... but on the other hand we have Autarcie. Basically, if you had this demo and enjoyed it, go check out Autarcie now and see where this sound gets developed in even greater detail!
Ciel Nocturne - Season of Solitude
Drakkar Productions, 2008
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro - Matin d'hiver
2. Fragments d'un passé qui me ronge
3. Le Goût du néant
4. Déclin Salutaire
5. Season of Solitude Part I
6. Paysage fané
7. La forêt sanctuaire
8. Grise ameritume
9. Brumes et pluies
10. Season of Solitude Part II
11. Outro - Dégel
After a bit of a dodgy demo, Ciel Nocturne put out their first full-length. Sure its often listed as a demo, but it's released by a major Black Metal label and runs about forty-five minutes in length, so it may as well be a full-length as far as I'm concerned. This is a cassette only release and has a pro-printed booklet with dubbed tape. It seems this is limited in some capacity because the #308 appears on my booklet.
I was a little worried when I first sat through the intro song, because the guitars were entirely too fuzzy and way too loud in the mix. Okay, the guitars are way too fuzzy throughout the entire album, but at least the mix balances off a bit more. It's still not that great and feels more like an LLN styled project in many respects. While the riffing is far more purposeful and strikes more melodic in sections, they still delve into that rather disturbing dissonance those projects touched upon in many ways. This is one of those times when slightly cleaning up the production a little bit might take something difficult to listen to and turn it into something very well done. A lot of the riffs on here are actually very well done, but they're getting loss in the mess of the production value. The only outright bad decision song wise, as far as I can tell is the choice to do clean vocals on "Season of Solitude Part I" and other songs where they show up.
For the most part this is a lot better than the split tape and they have matured their song writing quite a bit more. Perhaps working in projects like Hasserben has helped advanced that a bit more. This project is certainly a lot more melancholic than the likes of Hasserben though. Either way, aside from the totally necro-production, the only really bad ideas were the clean vocals, because those aren't that well executed at any rate. So, if you're a fan of the raw Black Metal scene out in France, this is probably worth hearing, just wish the production was a little better, because a lot of this appears to be pretty solid material.
Ciel Nocturne & Devilmind Split
Wolfsturm Propaganda, 2007
Genre: Black Metal
Ciel Nocturne:
1. Totaler Krieg
2. Division Sequania
3. Logik der Ausrottung
4. Hans Siste Vinter (Darkthrone cover)
5. Gloire Ephémère Devilmind:
6. Au Travers des Montagnes
7. Notre Territoire Menacé
8. Résistance Patriotique
9. Emprise Tyrannique
10. Jour de Gloire
11. Lorsque l'Esprit Revient a Grands a Grands Pas
Side Devilmind: ...coming eventually (but probably not, wasn't too into this)...
Side Ciel Nocturne:
I ended up finding Ciel Nocturne through my interest in the band Autarcie, since both members play in that band as well. Ciel Nocturne pre-dates that band a little bit though and I've enjoyed most of what these musicians do, so I figured I would try out their Ciel Nocturne project. The project debut's on a split tape limited to 200 hand-numbered copies. I own either 101, 104 or 107... it's hard to tell because the hand writing is so terrible. The booklet is printed on harder paper and looks professionally printed instead of a do-it-yourself xerox type of job.
Even though Metal-Archives states that their project called Svartkrig became Autarcie, I think the Ciel Nocturn music is a bit closer to what Autarcie play. Perhaps that's why Ciel Nocturne was eventually put to rest, because there was no point in running two projects that were so similar. Either way, if you're expecting a pristine and polished project, look someplace else. These musicians play harsh and raw Black Metal. To me a lot of their sound is heavily rooted in the style of Darkthrone, which is painfully obvious due to the cover that appears on this album. However, it is even more raw than what Darkthrone has produced on their albums. I do think Ciel Nocturne tend to be a little more melodic compared to Darkthrone, in the way the French play with melody at any rate. Prior to Ciel Nocturne they were also involved with a project called Svartkrig, which was very good, but far more intense. Ciel Nocturne is a much more laid back sounding Black Metal by comparison. This doesn't mean they play slow, we are treated to quite a few fast songs, blast beats and all, throughout the demo, but the compositions don't feel nearly as intense as the Svartkrig material.
So, if you're into Darkthrone inspired material, this may be a project to look at for future releases. Every song isn't great, but they have their moments. It's certainly a fairly solid start to a project and I'm interested to see where they go from here.
Entartung - Baptised into the Faith of Lust
World Terror Committee, 2017
Genre: Black Metal
1. Resurrectio mortuorum
2. Vices of the Prophet
3. De Sura Frukterna av Shalems Hus
4. Agni Kravyad
5. Der Werwolf
6. Black Dog of God
7. Hymne à la Beauté
When I saw it announced that Entartung had a new album coming, I was instantly excited. "Peccata Mortalia" has been receiving regular play in my rotation of albums. The track they debuted was "Black Dog of God" and when I listened to it on youtube, I was a little less than impressed... so I was worried the album wouldn't be very good. However, I also know that whatever youtube does to music is often bad for Black Metal, so judging a recording on that platform isn't so great. So, I bought the album anyway to see for myself.
I'm happy to report that "Baptised into the Faith of Lust" is an absolutely excellent album. One of the best released in 2017 I dare say, for me at any rate. After giving this quite a few listens at this point, I think I understand why I didn't really like the promo song. Perhaps to no fault of their own, but the lead sections of guitars is sometimes buried a little deeper in the mix than is necessary. Sure, it creates an interesting atmosphere of subtle leads... but that doesn't help the song stand out as much. When run through the youtube system, it basically gets rid of the leads quite a bit more, so the tracks don't seem as well done or as catchy, but listening to "Black Dog of God" on my own system really makes that track stand out. It is, indeed, one of the finer songs on the entire album and has some of the best riffs around!
"Baptised into the Faith of Lust" builds on the foundation of "Peccata Mortalia", but instead of staying within the realms of purely German Black Metal, I hear a bit of the Finnish end of things put into play. Granted it sounds primarily German, I just hear a bit of Sargeist styled elements show up here and there once in a while in their compositions. "Black Dog of God" basically opens with that kind of riffing, if you want to hear an example of it.
Once again, they have a beautifully designed booklet. There's only one issue I have with it, while the font choice is visually arresting and matches the layout concept very well... in terms of reading it's not so great. As with the prior album they include a background explanation for the lyrical influence of each song, but the font kind of hinders you from reading it too much. Design wise it really works though... so at least the whole booklet looks beautiful.
In the end Entartung have put together another truly excellent album and I'm looking forward to listening to it multiple times over the years. If you've been a fan of their discography so far, then this new album will certainly be no different. One of the things I like about Entartung is that they really manage to stay true to their core sound, but they don't just release the same album every time. They sort of circle around a core theme, but with different focus each time. Definitely one of the better bands to be following right now.
Entartung - Peccata Mortalia
World Terror Committee, 2014
Genre: Black Metal
1. Der Hölle Herr
2. Blasphemaverit in Spiritum Sanctum
3. Out of Darkness into Light
4. Faith on the Scaffold
5. Cimmerian Shade
6. To Conquer Immortality in the Depths
7. The Law of the Claw
8. Yawm ad-din
After an absolutely astonishing debut album, Entartung return a couple years later with the follow-up. They build on the basics of the debut, but push their compositions deeper on this album. In addition to well thought out music, the entirety of the album seems to have a far deeper layer to it. Just looking through the booklet, each song is accompanied by a background explanation on what influenced the lyrics. It's a really great read and they really put together an excellent design of the booklet as well.
"Peccata Mortalia" like 'Krypteia" is filled with all kinds of wonderful riffing to catch our ears, but there is a level of deepness to it that was sort of missing from "Krypteia". Indeed, "Krypteia" seems a bit more primitive by comparison. The arrangements and production trend more towards the modern side of Black Metal, and even though we've lost some of the raw edge in the production everything still feels organic, so there's no over production going on here. The drums sound like drums, not clicky computers. The arrangements seem more cohesive within each song, but I do wish there were a few more of those riffs that catch your ear instantly like the opening song on "Krypteia". They are certainly still featured throughout "Peccata Mortalia", such as the chorus section of "Blasphemaverit in Spiritum Sanctum", but I think there are a few less than the debut. They've also taken to adding piano into a couple areas, mainly the intro and outro. They do an okay job with it, its short and sweet and serves well enough to introduce and close the album.
In the end this is a very excellent follow-up to their debut. Some bands languish in the glory of their debut and never quite manage to overcome it, but Entartung have done that as far as I'm concerned. While "Peccata Mortalia" isn't leaps and bounds better, it definitely builds on the ideas the project laid down and sticks to those original roots. I'm definitely interested in following this project further, especially after two great albums.
Entartung - Krypteia
World Terror Committee, 2012
Genre: Black Metal
1. Flucht in die Finsternis
2. Der Sieg der Vergänglichkeit
3. Über die Grenzen des Todes
4. Drei Milliarden Herzschläge
5. Boreas, Gott der Nordwinde
6. Wenn die Jagd beginnt (Christenverfolgung)
I didn't discover Entartung until their second album when I was randomly buying albums from a distro. Their covers were eye catching and I tend to enjoy quite a bit of German Black Metal so I took a risk on the project and bought their first two albums. I also feel like this project came out of nowhere... the members don't seem to have been involved in other projects. There's no demo material before this. All of a sudden this band is on World Terror Committee one of the stronger Black Metal labels out there!
Regardless of the lack of history, I'm certainly glad to get my hands on this material. From the beginning of the very first riff of "Krypteia" I was immediately hooked. I knew from that moment I was in for a great album. This band basically nails everything I'm looking for in a Black Metal album. Granted its the German variant and I certainly won't complain about that, because here we have vicious rawness blended with catchy riffing blended with a cold, yet triumphant atmosphere. At times you'll hear some aspects of things like early Der Weg Einer Freiheit, but then they'll have these sections that really hook you in which remind me of bands like Schrat and Shores of Ladon. Its really an intoxicating listen, because they manage to do all that and still have the droning wall of sound sections we all love in Black Metal. If I had to level any type of criticism at this, the vocals are just okay. They fit the music well, certainly, but I've definitely heard better. Since this seems to be a two man project, I guess you just go with whoever's the best at it! Either way, they work well enough.
Entartung are obviously off to a truly stellar start... will they be able to keep it up? I absolutely hope so! I want more of this, we all need more of this out there. Anyway, if you're a fan of the modern German Black Metal sound, then this band is an absolute must hear as far as I'm concerned. This album has so much replay value for me as well and since I got it a few years ago, I still listen to it.
Dunkelheit - Mors Aeterna
Werewolf Promotion, 2014
Genre: Black Metal
1. Eternal Curse Upon Life
2. The Path of the Awakened
3. Ancient Storm of Forgotten Curse
4. The Endless Dream
5. Message from Beyond Stellar Spheres
6. Winds of Icecold Lakes
Wow what a follow-up! As you can tell I've typically been a little less than impressed with Dunkelheit over their past releases, but here we have a new full-length and from the first progression I am immediately sold on how good this is going to be! The only truly disappointing thing about this release is the lack of mentioning Beksinski as the artist. This album even features three of his pieces on it and, I just think they should have named him at the very least. Granted his art is all over Black Metal and its some of the most arresting stuff, but throw the credit down in the liner notes.
Anyway, this is the best Dunkelheit album by far. It actually has studio versions of some of the songs on the earlier demos and some other newer songs. The demo recordings were so poor that the music kind of lost its real appeal, but I'm glad they re-recorded these because I never would have known how incredible "Eternal Curse Upon Life" would be otherwise! As an opener for the album it immediately pulls you in and gets you read to enjoy a very well crafted album. It feels more like Dunkelheit is drawing of the German and Finnish sounds of Black Metal for this release in a lot of ways. Since I love that sound, I've enjoyed this album immensely start to finish! To top it off they really nailed the production this too, similarly to "Frozen in Eternity", but the songs are just much better.
In the end I'm elated to finally hear something this great from the band. If you look back at the demos it seemed like something like this would eventually grace our ears, but it just never came out. It seems like they wanted to go back and re-record their old stuff and release studio albums in order of the writing, which does make some sense. However, it looks like we've finally gotten caught up on their backlog of material and I really can't wait to hear what's next. If this is the progression the band is taking I would expect the next album to be even better!
Wacht & Dunkelheit Split
BergStolz, 2012
Genre: Black Metal
Wacht:
1. Excelling Aesthesia
2. Idealistic Elitism
3. Unveiling Desecration Dunkelheit:
4. Levitating Amongst the Stars
5. Ride to the Realm
6. Black Sun Rising
7. Dissolving the Mysteries
Side Wacht: ...coming eventually... (Probably not though, I'm not really into Wacht)
Side Dunkelheit:
After a disappointing debut, I was curious to see where this split would land in terms of Dunkelheit's compositions. Would it be more Burzum worship, or would it favor the later demos that were more intense. All the booklet says is that the song were recorded in 2009, so who knows what year they were composed.
I'm happy to report that the songs on this split sit somewhere between the two. The only really slowed down song is "Black Sun Rising", which moves into the instrumental closing track pretty nicely. Nebel seems to have dropped the high pitched wail vocals altogether. Instead we have the deeper styled Black Metal vocals and, frankly, it does make things sound a bit more sinister to me. The first two songs are of their faster variant though, and these worked out pretty well. I think they're still messing around with the faster style, because these songs are nothing very spectacular, but they are closer to the last demo they released. It might take a few releases to finally get this sound to work for them or to at least blend it with the old Burzum style they seem to go back to every now and again. In the end, the Dunkelheit side is good for what it is, but it is nothing overly exceptional, so if you miss out on the split, there's no real harm done. Hopefully the next release will have even bigger improvements!
Dunkelheit - Frozen in Eternity
Werewolf Promotion, 2010
Genre: Black Metal
1. Intro
2. Death is Only a Dream
3. The Blue Light
4. Never See the Light Again
5. Another Existence
6. Outro
Finally the debut album from Dunkelheit has arrived! And I'm sad to report it wasn't that great. Given how the project had been progressing in the demo stages I was expecting a far more excellent listen, but this debut makes more sense when you read into the liner notes. It says the songs were originally composed between 2006 and 2007. So, if you remember back, I was not a big fan of their first demo and a decent amount of this material sounds like that. The only song that I know is from 2007 is "The Blue Light" and its the best one on this album.
The intro starts off sounding reminiscent of Moonblood, but it swiftly gives way to the first song that turns into mid-paced Burzum worship. The songs are extremely simplified, even for Burzum worship this is pretty simplified. Unfortunately the album lacks a lot of the character that Burzum had, so it makes for a relatively boring listen. I think they're trying to be more "atmospheric" with a bit more of a droning approach to things, but I'm afraid it doesn't sound particularly great. The only really good song on here is "The Blue Light", which is the song from 2007. On the upside the recording production is very good. It's manages to keep the really great elements of the raw style, but the production is good enough for us to all hear what is actually going on much more clearly.
In the end, I am not a fan. I found the majority of this album to be pretty boring. If you wanted to hear what the band would sound like if progressed from the first demo tape, then here is the album to go with that. For me, though, I really hope they switch over to something more akin to the last two demos, because they were really onto something very good with those releases. Maybe in the next studio effort we'll hear a progression of that sound.
Dunkelheit - Endless Dream About the Final Deliverance
Werewolf Promotion, 2009
Genre: Black Metal
1. The Endless Dream
2. The Blue Light
This is the third demo tape from Dunkelheit and it basically picks up where "Eternal Curse Upon Life" left off for the most part. This is really just a rehearsal recording, so at times it's a little rough around the edges. Once again they publish the demo on cassette with a pro-printed cover and tape with stickers. This demo is limited to 200 hand-numbered copies and I own #200.
It seems that the "Eternal Curse Upon Life" demo caught the attention of Werewolf Promotion, which is a label the band would continue to work with. I've been a fan of a lot of Werewolf Promotion releases over the years and that label has a pretty good ear for things I like, that's really how I wound up finding out about Dunkelheit. At any rate, this is their first release on that label and here we have two rehearsal tracks, which are naturally quite raw. The riffing is pretty good for the most part, some sections clearly could use work, but if this was recorded after the "Eternal Curse Upon Life", I think the project is really starting to develop even better ideas. Vocally Nebel is kind of doing a hybrid of the more usual Black Metal screams and the high range Burzum style. It works out pretty well, giving a more strained and tortured feel to the vocal performance. I very much prefer this approach over the the just high screaming of the first demo. Even though there are only two songs on this demo you get around 20 minutes of music, so don't expect this to be a quick listen.
I think Dunkelheit is on its way to producing something pretty good and it's about time they should hit a studio and make a proper recording for their music. The songs on here hit somewhere between a Mayhem style and a Darkthrone style, which is interesting since the first demo was all Burzum, so I'll be happy if they continue in the Darkthrone/Mayhem vein, which I personally enjoy a lot more.
Dunkelheit - Eternal Curse of the Carpathians
A.M.F. Productions, 2008
Genre: Black Metal
Eternal Curse Upon Life: (2008)
1. Eternal Curse Upon Life
2. Winds of Icecold Lakes
3. Death is Only a Dream Spell of the Dark Woods: (2007)
4. Intro
5. Spell of the Dark Woods
6. The Eternity Opens
7. Et hvitt lys over skogen (Burzum cover)
If you missed out on the first two demo tapes from Dunkelheit like I did, then this compilation was released in the same year as the second demo. I really enjoy listening to demos like this, even if the music is never really that great or the production is atrociously bad, because I like hearing how a band starts out. I like to see how a band grows over time as they try to discover their own sound. This pressing comes with a pro-printed booklet with a dubbed tape with stickers. I'm sure its limited in some fashion, but there is nothing saying what the limitation is.
Even though this tape starts with their second demo, which I'm sure is going to be the better of the two, I like to go in order of release date, so we'll begin with "Spell of the Dark Woods". The intro to the demo reminds of something you'd hear on the likes of Mütiilation with its weird feeling patterns. However, it isn't long before we get into the first track. Now you'll notice the closing track on the first demo is a Burzum song, this is going to be a major indicator of what influences Dunkelheit most. This demo is very clearly heavily influenced by Burzum more than anything else, right down to the higher pitched wails for the vocal performance. It's strange to see a track titled "The Eternity Opens", which I'm sure has to be a Mayhem reference, but then it just sounds like Burzum like the song before. They've mastered the Burzum song so well, that the Burzum cover is actually quite good. The production quality is so raw that it's actually a bit worse production wise than the original, but it manages to fit that early 90's vibe with such a raw sound. I'm not the biggest fan of Burzum, so, for me, I'm not very into this demo in the grand scheme of things.
The second demo from Dunkelheit "Eternal Curse Upon Life" is very different from the first. If you were expecting the project to keep up the Burzum theme, you might be disappointed to find they've taken things up a notch and play a far different style of Black Metal. For me though, this is a very pleasant shift. First off, the music is much faster, and the chord structuring is much catchier with far more fire in their overall sound. This is the kind of Black Metal I would get to know from Dunkelheit on future releases, so it's nice to see they started developing this style earlier. The overall musicianship has dramatically improved over that years time as well and I think this is a good sign that the project will eventually get somewhere pretty decent before long.
If you're a fan of the band Dunkelheit and want to see where they started, but couldn't track down their original demos, then this cassette compilation is totally worth getting. Sure, it's not the best Black Metal out there, but it's an good look into the bands past. Unfortunately nothing really has much in the way of replay value here, so for most people it's probably not really worth getting. Unless you really get into the whole demo aspect of Black Metal like I do.
Nocturnal Chalice - The Hidden Order
Tour de Garde, 2016
Genre: Black Metal
1. Midnight Ritual
2. Possessed by Burning Hatred
Nocturnal Chalice is a new one man project out of Scotland. Coming out on the ranks of Tour de Garde you can probably expect this to be some fairly raw Black Metal. This is only a two song cassette demo, the cover isn't pro-printed or anything, which gives the tape an even more old school feel to it. Almost like the band themselves went out and xeroxed copies for distribution. I love the aesthetic because it brings me back to the old days.
Nocturnal Chalice give us two songs rooted in the old way of doing things. Musically I really like what I'm hearing. It's raw and rough, but the riffs are really good and they rather old an ancient atmosphere of the early 90's Black Metal. Amidst the chilling riffs that are blasted over there's some really excellent riffs with great melodies and some that really hook the listener in. It's only two songs, but it generates an excellent atmosphere and I'd certainly like to hear more from this project.
Naturally, the major complaint with anything raw usually comes down to a production issue. In some cases the raw production works and it could work quite well for Nocturnal Chalice, the only gripe I really have is that he needs to get some control over his low end. There's too much of a "wooshing" sound in the mix and that mars the listening experience a little bit. If he sits down and cleans up these frequencies he might be onto something really great here!
In the end, I think Nocturnal Chalice are doing some pretty good things. Hopefully I'll be able to hear more from them soon and I'd be interested to see where the project goes from here, since its off to a fairly strong start.
