Sarrgh

Sarrgh - Black Hate and Doom
Christhunt Productions, 2005
Genre: Black Metal

1. The Last Northern Warrior
2. The Path of Despair
3. Ancient Sky
4. Black Hate and Doom
5. Cold Winds of Grimly Forest
6. Die Kalte Klinge
7. Satanischer Zorn
8. Salute to Christ








I ran across this release when I was looking at Maniac Butcher's page and found that Vlad played bass in this project. Naturally, I missed out on this release when it first came out and didn't delve into it until 2018. It truly is hard to get all the releases out there when they're first released, but I tracked this down and got the copy recently. This CD is limited to 666 copies, but I'm sure there are many still floating around since this release didn't exactly tear through the scene as a must have.

As you can imagine this is Black Metal of the raw variety, it truly has that early 90's production, but it's made well enough to hear everything. The mixing is a bit suspect and the cymbals sound weird at times. The vocals are probably the worst part of this album, they're really blown out and don't sound very good at all. Other than that, musically, this reminds me a lot of the German material that was coming out in the late 90's, but with some more Heavy Metal moments thrown in more in line with Darkthrone's combination. It's more than just sawing away at a guitar for five minutes on every song, so in that regard Sarrgh is a bit more interesting to listen to. However, as far as a debut release goes, the material isn't that bad and the songs capture that cold ancient atmosphere from the early era of Black Metal.

I would never say Sarrgh is a must have and you rush out and buy it right away, but it is a cool little release that does a good job of paying homage to bygone era. If Sarrgh had continued to release material I do wonder if this project would have improved a lot, since bands that start like this tend to improve their writing a lot more as they continue on. Unfortunately after this they only released a 7" that I have yet to track down and we haven't heard from the band since.

Funeral Winds

Funeral Winds - Sekhmet
 New Era Productions, 2015
Genre: Black Metal

1. Seven Arrows, Knife and Flame - Sekhmet
2. Sinister Creed













After the successful release of "Nexion XUL" I had no idea Funeral Winds would essentially go on the back burner for quite a while. Just when I thought Funeral Winds was about to hit their prime the whole project just stopped. Well here are eight years later and suddenly I started seeing posts surface about new recordings. I was, naturally, very excited about this since I really enjoyed the last two Funeral Winds albums. Probably to prove the project wasn't dead they quickly released two new songs on this 7" release, which I ordered as soon as I could. This release is limited to 500 copies, but no limitation is listed on the packaging.

The two new songs from Funeral Winds are certainly promising. Sadly Balgradon is no longer drumming in the project, I imagine things got too busy with Infinity, since that is his main project. Funeral Winds is now down to just Hellchrist and a session from from Germany calling himself MZI. MZI drums for the band Kvltist. He does a great job with the Funeral Winds material, he's a bit more heavy on the blasting than Balgradon was and he, naturally, lacks the overall flair Balgradon threw into his arrangements. Unfortunately, most drummers don't do that kind of arranging. So, the new Funeral Winds falls into the brand of Black Metal that is a more punishing blast heavy style. Luckily Hellchrist's riffs match this style perfectly and we get a very evil and intense sounding composition. The second song "Sinister Creed" has some serious Gorgoroth worship going on and that was interesting to hear, because with the Gorgoroth style drums it creates this sort of grinding effect (no, not like the genre). Switching between that and the more standard arrangement for Funeral Winds created quite an excellent song, the only bad part of the song is that it is quite short at under three minutes. However, if this is is indicative of what's to come from Funeral Winds on a future full-length I am absolutely excited and eager to hear it. It may not be like the glory days, but it sounds like it will certainly be a great release nonetheless.

Funeral Winds - Nexion XUL
Sadolust Records, 2007
Genre: Black Metal

1. The Old Serpent Stirs
2. Fasten Upon Mankind the Eye of Death
3. The Blood of Chaos
4. Anzu
5. The Cursed Bloodline
6. The Luminous Dissolves
7. Den of the Malignant Ones
8. Alkatu Destroyed
9. I Call Upon the Deep






After the amazing "Koude Haat" I was really excited to hear the next album from Funeral Winds. At least we didn't have to wait as long between albums this time around, but it still took a while before this one came out. Still, I'm more a proponent of not rushing an album and I'd rather musicians work slowly and really put out the best material they can come up with rather than just put out albums for the sake of putting out albums. Now, if you were expecting "Koude Haat" part two, that's not really what we've got here.

"Nexion XUL" is a pretty good follow-up to "Koude Haat", but I'm still reeling from how excellent that album was. Personally, I don't think "Nexion XUL" is a better album, but it is a very good album nonetheless. Funeral Winds have finally put that extra something into their music that makes me coming back for more. There is a lot of similarities between the two albums, but "Nexion XUL" sounds more powerful and evil and a lot of that is coming from the production as well as the riffs. Just listen to "The Cursed Bloodline" and you'll see what I mean. It seems Hellchrist has gotten tired of dealing with other studios and merely created his own. Balgradon recorded the drums in his own studio. The end result is production that seems a bit cleaner, but also feels a bit more compressed compared to the insanity of "Koude Haat". "Nexion XUL" has much better production and everything is a lot more balanced, so the strength of the recording really shows through quite a bit more. "Koude Haat" felt a lot more untamed by comparison, but it also felt way more vicious and intense because of that fact. "Nexion XUL" feels more tame, but at the same time a lot darker and more evil, which I believe is really what Hellchrist has always wanted his music to sound like, but just wasn't achieving that feel, especially in the early days. Back then he wasn't writing riffs that sounded very threatening, but on "Nexion XUL" they're all over the place, so it makes for a much more immense listen.

While "Nexion XUL" sounds and feels different from "Koude Haat" it's still an excellent album. It's has a lot of great songs on here and a performance that certainly exceeds what we heard on "Koude Haat". It will certainly be interesting to see where Funeral Winds takes things from here now that I believe they're starting to lock into their sound.

Funeral Winds - Koude Haat
Death to Mankind Records, 2004
Genre: Black Metal

1. When the Funeral Winds Cry for Revenge
2. Soul Harvest
3. Koude Haat
4. Carnage in the Temple of Jeruzalem
5. From the Depth of the Earth
6. The Wicked are the Wise
7. Dawn of the Bestial Bloodshed
8. The Beast Within
9. Raised by the Fury of the Ancient Ones






Funeral Winds has had quite the hiatus going since the release of their debut and even longer when you consider that album was recorded back in 1995. So it's been nearly a decade since Funeral Winds has reared its hateful head. The hiatus proved to be a good thing in my mind because here we have "Koude Haat", one of the most hateful and vicious sounding Black Metal albums around.

As seems to be typical with Funeral Winds there have been more line-up changes, but here we have a new drummer that truly fits perfectly with this sound, Balgradon XUL. Balgradon is from the band Infinity and I highly encourage people to check out this project as well! "Koude Haat" wouldn't be nearly as awesome of a release if it wasn't for Balgradon's masterful drum work taking Hellchrist's riffs and making them into a punishing force. It sort of reminds me of the work Endstille is putting out at this time. This raw and cold style of Black Metal, but Funeral Winds throws a good deal more catchy riffs into the mix. The real stand out for that is the chorus to "Koude Haat", which is by far my favorite song on the album. I actually quite like the production on this album, because while it has this sort of raw lo-fi quality, you can still hear everything pretty well. It has this razor sharp thinned out guitar feel, but with the roaring bass to fill out the rest of the spectrum it works really well. The drums are really powerful, perhaps a bit too loud in the mix at times, but it works well enough.

"Koude Haat" is an extremely good album and quite a shock coming out of Funeral Winds, because their prior material wasn't exactly like this. This album has such raw cold hatred underlying every moment that it is just perfect from beginning to end. Now that Funeral Winds has hit this level of composition I'm really looking forward to anything they do next, I hope they won't be on hiatus for nearly as long and they don't have line-up changes. I, especially, hope they don't lose this drummer because he is perfect for this project.

Funeral Winds - Godslayer XUL
Daimonion, 1998
Genre: Black Metal

1. For the Glory of XUL
2. A Diabolical Meeting
3. Thy Eternal Flame
4. Visions of Afterlife
5. Resurrection of the Five Winds
6. When Twilight Shines Over the Forgotten Fields
7. Screaming for Grace
8. Night of the Utterdark
Inferi:
9. The Raven's Son (Birth of a Warlock
10. December (Cry for War)
11. Siren Voice of the Ancient
12. In the Sign of Chaos

It seems like it took quite a while for Funeral Winds to finally get a full-length out and when you read into this release there were a lot of problems. When you read the liner notes you'll find this was recorded all the way back in 1995, but it didn't see the light of day until 1998. It's strange because there were some serious line-up changes from even the split with Abigail. They have an entirely new drummer on this release. I also missed out on the original 1998 press of this release and I own the re-release from 2002 published by Death to Mankind Records. This has bonus tracks from a side project called Inferi that also features almost everyone in Funeral Winds. However, this was a side project called Inferi which were recorded in 1997, but were never released until now.

The debut album from Funeral Winds covers a lot of new territory and features re-recordings of some earlier songs. I wonder if they just wanted to hear the earlier songs with the new drummer who is clearly much better than the original drummer they had, but he was getting much better with every release, so it's strange to see them switch. Anyway this album starts off with the campiest intro song ever, "For the Glory of XUL". If it only had the "eerie" keyboards it would have been fine, but then the guttural vocals kick in saying something stupid and it just kills it. It sounds lame and campy. So, I was surprised that after such a bad start things picked up quite a bit better. I sort of new what to expect after hearing the other Funeral Winds albums, but I was impressed with how good the new drummer sounds. He's a lot more solid and clearly much faster, I think he outpaces the guitars in a couple parts so it feels off here and there. This was recorded in the same studio as all their other material, but this album sounds quite a bit better than everything else they've done so far. Even "Thy Eternal Flame" came out a lot better than the original version. For a 1995 recording this sounds pretty good, I think it was just released way too late and by 1998 this had become quite generic, so the release would fall on fairly deaf ears. I certainly don't remember anyone mentioning the band to me during this time frame and I ordered music from all over the world back then too. "Godslayer XUL", unfortunately, is merely an okay debut album, they're getting better, but they still don't capture my imagination with their writing yet.

The Inferi tracks are quite different, but they're also much newer in terms of composition. I really liked this material and I'm glad they decided to finally release it. The songs are a good deal more atmospheric and have a much more mature writing style. Hellchrist did the vocals on this and they sound a good deal better than any of the vocalists he's had in Funeral Winds. Anyway, these Inferi tracks really make this re-release worth hearing.

For a debut album, "Godslayer XUL" is certainly a lot better than the previous releases, but it still lacks that certain something that would make the album truly good. Instead it sounds like a lot of other basic Black Metal that's been released over the years. Hopefully Funeral Winds will keep writing and working on songs to try and come into their own and write something truly worthwhile. The Inferi tracks show that they are clearly capable of that.

Funeral Winds & Abigail - Screaming for Grace
Warmaster Records, 1995
Genre: Black Metal

Funeral Winds:
1. Twilight Shine Upon My Crypt
2. The Fiery Winds of Our Revenge
3. Resurrection of the Five Winds
4. Screaming for Grace
5. Liar of Golgotha
Abigail:
6. Attack with Spell
7. Dead God - King of Kemet
8. The Crown Bearer
9. We Shall Not Await the Dawn
10. Darkness Steals



Side Abigail: ...maybe not coming...
Side Funeral Winds:

Funeral Winds continues to make improvements in their overall sound and to present their new material they do it through a split with Japan's Abigail. I probably won't review the Abigail side because their discography is huge and I'm not really into their project anyway. I much prefer Funeral Winds anyway.

So, one thing people should know about this release is that even though it lists five tracks there are only three from Funeral Winds. The first three tracks on the Funeral Winds side are actually all in a single track. I don't know if that was an error or intentional, but either way that's what happened. I think Funeral Winds are starting to come into their own a little bit more with this release, at least they're starting to blend together more than just Darkthrone or early Gorgoroth worship. The riffs are written much better, the recording quality is stronger and the band is much tighter as a whole. I think Funeral Winds is finally on their way to putting out some solid material, especially since they're starting to write in a more mature fashion. It's not quite there yet, but it's almost there. The song "Screaming for Grace" is by far my favorite on this recording, it reminds me of another band I like, but I'm drawing a blank on who that band is.

In the end if you missed out on the material before this I'm not sure you've missed out on much, this is an excellent starting point for getting into Funeral Winds. The songs are far more interesting and they have a much stronger atmosphere. They're still worshiping the Norwegian style of Black Metal, but on this recording they do a much more interesting job of it.

Funeral Winds - Thy Eternal Flame
Black Arts Productions, 1994
Genre: Black Metal

1. Thy Eternal Flame
2. Steps of Ritual













This is the first 7" vinyl EP Funeral Winds put out and it came very shortly after their demo on Pagan Records. It may seem like they're repeating material here, but even though these songs showed up on the last tape they were actually live recordings. These are studio recording of these two songs.

This is just a continuation of the material and writing style we heard on "Resurrection..." However, the recording quality is a little bit better, in my opinion anyway. It seems the band has gotten better at playing as a unit this time around. The music feels like a crossover of Gorgoroth and Darkthrone, especially "Steps of Ritual". It sounds like the band is doing well enough to the point where they can start delving into full-length territory, provided they consistently write enough material. After hearing these re-recordings I'm a bit more interested in hearing what they have in store next. The opening of "Thy Eternal Flame" kind of sounds like Dani Filth with the way he basically chirps the vocal line, so that sounds a little off, but the rest is pretty good old school Black Metal... or well general Black Metal, seeing as how this was written and released so long ago.

Funeral Winds - Resurrection...
Pagan Records, 1994
Genre: Black Metal

1. Demon Overture (Intro)
2. Dawn of the Apocalypse
3. Resurrection of the Five Winds
4. Steps of Ritual
5. Thy Eternal Flame











This is actually Funeral Winds' third demo tape. The first being a rehearsal I've never seen before and the second being "La Majestie Infernable", which I have only heard a couple tracks from. I the early 2000's a bunch of bootlegs showed up around the world and that was one of them. Even though it bears the name of the second demo, it only has two songs from that tape and features most of the songs on this tape and then their split with Abigail. So, I've only heard two songs from that demo and they were noisy, harsh, and generally not that great. That brings us to "Resurrection..." and this is a pro-printed cassette on Pagan Records. It's pro booklet with stickers on a dubbed tape and while I'm sure there's a limitation, none is listed on the tape itself.

"Resurrection..." certainly sounds a lot better than the material I heard from "La Majestie Infernable." The music isn't as noisy and even though it still has that raw do-it-yourself approach, it's mixed in a much better fashion. The band is also tighter and feels more together than the prior demo.  "Resurrection...", while not a bad demo, still feels more like a major Darkthrone clone than anything else. The songs are spectacularly stand-out, but I don't remember much from when Funeral Winds first came out and listening to it in 2018 in retrospect is kind of hard to put into perspective. There's just been so much tried and true Darkthrone worship demos in my life.

If you're a fan of the band and really interested in the roots of the project then this is certainly worth checking out. Only Hellchrist Xul is still involved in the project, since it's his project, so it was interesting to delve back into the past and hear the first members of the band. Either way it's fun to listen to how bands start out.

Trist (Ger)

Trist - Willenskraft
Cold Dimension, 2009
Genre: Dark Ambient/Black Metal

1. Bewusstsein
2. Wagemut
3. Zweifel
4. Herzenswunsch
5. Verhinderer
6. Wandlung









Here it is, the final installment of Trist before putting the project to rest. This time returning to Cold Dimension for the release and put out in the usual digipak format to match up with the others. There's no booklet and no limitation listed, but this is certainly limited in some capacity.

This seems to follow an alternating format of Ambient track then Black Metal track. This album is a little disappointing in this regard, because it seems like it would be a favorite of mine, but it's really not. The Ambient parts of this album are even more lackluster than "Initiation". That strong dark and horror vibe from "Fort" is not developed here, in fact it's not even present. I feel like Tristan was trying to make something more majestic than horrifying. The Ambient tracks all sound the same and they're basically a sample of ocean waves crashing on the shore. Again, this would make for great intro/outro filler between Black Metal tracks, but they're full on songs, so its a solid eight minutes of this. The first song with Black Metal in it, "Wagemut" sounds like a one riff Lunar Aurora song. There might be vocals, its hard to tell if they are samples or screaming by Tristan because its so far in the background. This time around though the balance between the guitars and drums is much more balanced. By the time the second Black Metal song shows up, "Herzenswunsch", I'm convinced that these are just riffs from Lunar Aurora's "Andacht". In fact, a lot of the metal parts feel like they are off that specific album. Tristan started composing this album shortly after "Andacht" was released, so maybe he got really obsessed with that format. "Andacht" also features a lot of crashing waves and while this worked wonderfully for Lunar Aurora it really doesn't work on Trist.

Unfortunatley, it seems "Willenskraft" doesn't end on much of a high note, because I'll just be listening to Lunar Aurora's "Andacht" instead as it is a far better album for my tastes. Sadly it stands that Trist's best release was "Hin-Fort" and it seems to be a one time thing. Perhaps the similarities in "Andacht" brought this project to a close as there was way too much overlap of the projects, but who knows, perhaps Tristan just lost the inspiration to try and compose this kind of material. It takes a great amount of patience to listen to this material and I can only imagine it demanded even more to compose.

Trist - Initiation
Kunsthall Produktionen, 2008
Genre: Dark Ambient

1. In die schwarze nacht
2. Toter raum
3. Kalt
4. Nirgendwo
5. Schatten
6. Darunter
7. Traurige geister
8. Hindurch
9. Fragmente





After the success of "Hin-Fort" it seems there was some demand for the earliest Trist experimentations. Here we have "Initiation" which is Ambient recordings made between 2000 and 2003 before the first album was released. You could consider this the Ambient demo that had yet to be officially released. Trist returns to Kunsthall for this release and like the debut it is limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, of which I own #302.

While I wasn't a major fan of the debut, you can imagine that "Initiation" has sort of the same response from me. If you're really into drone ambient then you may find this release extremely appealing. For me, this was before his Dark Ambient really improved on releases like "Hin-Fort". I can see why he wouldn't want to release this material as the first thing to put out there. It's not outright terrible or anything, but it just lacks some of the substance I usually prefer in Ambient releases. The atmospheres aren't as rich as some of the more stand out artists of the genre. I mainly feel like this material would serve as a great backdrop for black metal, such as the "Hin" section of the previous release, but as a stand alone release the material isn't that compelling.

If you are curious about the project and want to see the first experiments in Ambient for Tristan then this will be a novel journey to take. It's not as reach or dark as his later work, but you can see how he developed the project over the years.

Trist - Hin-Fort
Cold Dimensions, 2006
Genre: Ambient Black Metal

Disc 1: Hin:
1. Hin

Disc 2: Fort:
1. (Keine) Angst
2. Unterdenwolken
3. Hilfe
4. Schlaflos
5. Lichtausi
6. Nachtflug
7. Fort



It's been a while since we heard from Trist and they return with quite the release in this double CD format. I think Trist's original concept was to be an Ambient side project, as is usual for a lot of metal musicians, but based on this release I guess Tristan just couldn't keep away from the Black Metal. This album comes as a 2CD digipak with a fairly limited layout, but that's probably because they had to press two CD's. It's minimalistic art wise and fits the whole Trist atmosphere pretty well as usual.

The first disc is a single song lasting exactly one hour, which is fairly impressive in its own right. "Hin" is straight up Atmospheric Black Metal similar to Paysage d'Hiver, only they take us to task with the droning guitar work. The material has less variation than a Paysage d'Hiver song, but Trist is going more for a droning Ambient motif, so in this regard the track succeeds. It's extremely hypnotic and flowing, you can barely make out the riff changes as all the guitar parts are very similar. But, again, this works out brilliantly as casting Ambient music in terms of Black Metal. There's also a long monologue from someone talking about really weird space stuff and how they are space, it really works in the track, but it was still really strange. For me "Hin" worked out pretty well, however, it doesn't have the same kind of replay value as a Paysage d'Hiver song, it's probably too droning and meditative to really warrant repeat listens. It doesn't capture you the same way a Paysage d'Hiver riff does. The other slight problem with the track was how far away the drums were in the mix, but I'm pretty used to that with this type of music, Paysage d'Hiver has similar issues on their recordings. The guitars create this huge wall of sound that just dominates the audio spectrum, but that's also kind of the point.

"Fort" on the other hand is straight up Dark Ambient. I think Tristan's original concept behind the project caught up with him and he wanted to do another type of Ambient release. As with "Tiefenrausch" it bears resemblance to Atrium Carceri a lot and this Ambient goes more for a Horror type of droning feel. Coupled with the samples from all the horror movies throughout the disc you can see where this idea is coming from. I did find it amusing to hear a sample from the movie Boogeyman in "Nachtflug". I've seen some of the movies sampled, but not all of them, since I'm not a big horror movie buff. I just thought it was funny to hear Boogeyman show up, because it seemed like such a stupid movie, but the samples Tristan took actually work pretty expertly in the moments of this Ambient. I will say the Ambient journey of "Fort" is definitely a step up compared to "Tiefenrausch".

In the end if you're obsessed with the droning sounds of terror this is a must listen. You'll enjoy both sides of this release for sure. It maybe not have a huge amount of replay value, but it is exceptional at creating that mood and atmosphere it is designed for. There are very few releases out there like this as far as I can tell, at least in terms of the breadth and scope of the droning atmospheres, which is why "Hin-Fort" is probably a very highly sought after release. Very few releases do as good a job at generating this type of atmosphere as well.

Trist - Tiefenrausch (Ein Abstieg in 5 Stufen)
Kunsthall Produktionen, 2003
Genre: Dark Ambient

1. Wintermondlicht
2. Geräum
3. Kraftfeld
4. Novembernebel
5. Tiefenrausch










One of the things that attracted me to this project, aside from the fact that it is entirely done by a member of Lunar Aurora, is the fact that Kunsthall Produktionen put this out. If it's good enough for Wintherr, then it's probably more than good enough for me. As usual with Kunsthall the packaging is beautifully done with a very nicely made digipak that has art that really exemplifies the atmosphere of this project. The release is also limited to 500 hand-numbered copies and I own #210... I think... it might be #216 it's hard to tell.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this release at first. I had a vague idea, because I had seen comparisons to Paysage d'Hiver and Darkspace... although Darkspace put out their demo not too long before this was released, so Paysage d'Hiver is probably a far more apt reference. I guess I was expecting there to be Black Metal, but there is none. It's just Dark Ambient with most of the songs clocking in at over sixteen minutes. Now it's good ambient, don't get me wrong. It's very dark and very ominous. It also has this quality to it that makes it feel rather spacey. You can hear some clear Atrium Carceri influence in a lot of the recordings. However, I feel the Atrium Carceri is a far more exciting Ambient project compared to Trist. Trist seems to focus primarily on drones and creating a sort of hypnotic state. This isn't all that different compared to the type of ambient Paysage d'Hiver attempts to put out, except that I feel Trist has a darker sort of cosmic feel to it. Perhaps similar to the more droning Darkspace aspects, but Darkspace is really just using it as a backdrop for their music, whereas in Trist's case it is the music. The only major variations that show up is during the spoken word sections, which appear in every song. But it's rather sporadic, so it doesn't interrupt that meditative or droning flow of the music that much.

The fact that I saw this being advertised amidst Metal projects is a bit confusing, since this appears to be an Ambient side project of a Lunar Aurora member. This is a very common thing in Black Metal since Fenriz had Neptune Towers, Satyr had Wongraven, Ihsahn turned Thou Shalt Suffer into one and there are many more. Aran's Ambient side project is no different really, so it really depends on what you expect going into this project. If you were expecting Black Metal on par with Paysage d'Hiver you will be sorely disappointed. I confess, I was a little disappointed, I would have preferred to know this album was entirely Ambient up front, because then I just spend all my time waiting for the moment when the Metal kicks in and it never arrives... so, if you're not a fan of droning Dark Ambient that doesn't really go anywhere and instead puts you in a meditative state, then you should steer clear of this release. However, if you're an Ambient fan like many of the Black Metal listeners out there, then this might be something worth checking out. Personally, I think I have far better Ambient from the straight up Ambient artists. I will say Trist is quite a bit better than the Ambient tracks found on Paysage d'Hiver, but, to me, Ambient is not Paysage d'Hiver's strong suit, so at least Trist is more successful in that regard for me.