Obscurité

Obscurité - Contemplation II
Ossuaire Records, 2015
Genre: Black Metal

1. Intro
2. Invocation
3. Lointains chants dans l'horizon
4. Le Cosmos: Dans la fuite des saisons
5. Dans l'astrailité de l'esprit
6. Le Sanctuaire
7. L'impasse lunaire
8. In Regeneratione Solis
9. Erêbe
10. Outro





Obscurité wasted no time in getting back into the studio to release their second full-length and what a massive improvement in just a years time. Obscurité still manage to keep their core epic atmosphere as the main focus in the arrangements, but this time things have been pushed a little more. This CD comes with a full multi-page booklet this time and the lyrics aren't all crammed onto two pages. The cover and back of the jewel case are a little too dark though, it's one of those things where maybe what was on the computer screen didn't translate as well into a printed product. In this case things are a bit too dark. The booklet is beautiful too look at with its images of landscapes and has lyrics for one song per page this time, which works out much better.

After we get beyond the intro the first thing you'll notice is how much faster the opening song is. This came as quite the shock because we had just gone through quite a lengthy album of slow and quite lengthy material. For "Contemplation II" everything is pushed to the more extreme ends of things and now the album is conjuring up images of early Darkenhöld, which is a truly wonderful image to have. "Contemplation II" feels ancient and medieval and it's only enhanced all the more by the rare keyboard and choir work. Even the guitar tone is much improved on this album and I think a higher gain setting was chosen for this. I think the tempo increase gave Fog a bit more room to be creative since metal drumming is clearly his forté. Don't worry if you're afraid everything is all fast, songs like "Dans l'astrailité de l'esprit" hearken back to the first albums tempo. However, this time they serve to switch up the tempo of the songs and I find this a much more enjoyable experience than before.

If you enjoyed the first album, I can't imagine why this one would disappoint you, since this really just further advances on the first release. The material feels much better written this time around too and the guitar riffs are truly melodic and epic in nature, much more so than before. This project has turned into something really wonderful and I look forward to what's in store for us next, especially with this much improvement between releases already.

Obscurité - Contemplation
Ossuaire Records, 2014
Genre: Black Metal

1. Absolu
2. Païen
3. Contemplatio
4. Résistance éternelle
5. Réminiscence
6. Des ailes
7. Elégie
8. L'ivresse nocturne du ciel etoilé (Cycles)
9. L'aurore et la solarité






Obscurité is a fairly new project out of France and since I've always followed Ossuaire Records, naturally I would wind up with this on my desk. I was also pleased to see that Fog offered drum effort, so I knew the drumming would be quite good. He also offered layout and design treatment and the cover is quite arresting. The booklet which is only two  pages has all the lyrics for the entire album, but because it's on two pages it really does feel a bit crammed onto the pages. On Metal-Archives this is listed as Epic Black Metal for the genre, and so I wasn't expecting the usual fast paced barrage of our usual wall of sound.

Obscurité do have quite an "epic" feel to their take on Black Metal. It just feels ancient and slow moving with the way the material is presented. Blast beats are few and far between and instead the tempo is quite slow. It's, basically, down-tempo Black Metal, if you will. Blast beats are few and far between, but Fog does sneak them in there once in a while. Ash's guitar work is quite good and there are some really exceptional riffs on this release. It sort of reminds me of an album built around the more epic styled Bathory songs or a band like Macabre Omen.  I think the one complaint I would level at the guitars is I wish there was more gain on the guitars or something. When they perform the palm muting riffs it feels a little fuzzy kind of like the distortion settings Mütiilation would use, but that's my most major complaint. Vocally Ash is just okay, nothing exceptional in my book. It's sort of like when Demonaz put out his own album and it reminds me of that. They're not bad vocals, but they don't really stand out either.

In the end this is a pretty good first effort. For me, I'm not sure how much it will wind up in my future listening, because I tend to prefer the faster variant of Black Metal. This being the case "Elégie" is probably my favorite song on this album. I usually like the slower tempo Black Metal as a song or two on an album to break up the monotony of blasting/speed which a lot of Black Metal ends up sounding like. However, if you've ever listened to those songs and said "wow, I wish I had a whole album of this" then look no further, Obscurité is an absolutely fine choice. Ash does a great job of executing that style and making the riffs interesting and, as you can guess, quite epic.

Hysteria

Hysteria - Flesh, Humiliation and Irreligious Deviance
Great Dane Records, 2016
Genre: Death Metal

1. In Belief, Into Nothingness...
2. Sadistic Deviance
3. Visceral Torments
4. Heiress of Disease
5. Ô Father...
6. Succubus Offering
7. The Unhealthy Signature: Haunted by Words of Gods Part II
8. Hérésie
9. Demons from the Past
10. Flesh Messiah
11. Blasphemous Writings (Final Part)


I sort of lost track of Hysteria over the years and I had no idea the project was still active, sadly I was a couple years late picking up this album. I don't know what made me check up on them, but I was pleasantly surprised a new album was out. I think they got lost in the shuffle over the years, because the last album did come out quite a long time ago. Sadly this album has probably been overlooked by the scene as well.

"Flesh, Humilation and Irreligious Deviance" really picks up right where "When Believers Preach their Hangamn's Dogma" leaves off. It's almost hard to believe such a large spans of time has gone by between these two albums. Naturally, "Flesh, Humilation and Irreligious Deviance" does advance their sound quite a lot. It's just interesting to think about what catches the public eye, for example Hate has gotten quite popular, but Hysteria is every bit as good as that band. This is really the difference between a large scale touring act, but I still wish it was easier for bands like Hysteria to get their name out there because their music is truly awesome. I can tell already from the first listen that this album will be added to my "go to" list of Death Metal albums to listen to. It's interesting to see how much Hysteria has changed over the years and I feel like they've become even more influenced by the sounds of Polish Death Metal, but their addition of more Swedish styled melodies into the mix really can make their sound feel quite different from the usual Polish masters. One interesting thing I've noticed this time around is their inclusion of varying up the vocals a lot more. Prior to this they stayed mostly in the low guttural style with the occasional higher range scream. But this time they are starting to include some more flat out yelling styles that are really making for a great effect in the atmosphere of the songs. They really stand out quite a bit, because they are markedly different from the way a vocalist like Nergal approaches them.

In the end the new Hysteria is simply an awesome album. If you liked the last album, I can't imagine you would be disappointed with this release. I feel like Hysteria are finally settling down into their own sound and have found their own unique take on the genre after spending a couple albums trying to find their sound. Since this album and the last are a result of that exploration, I would say two mediocre releases were well worth the wait for something this exquisite. They've really managed to give a truly refined feel to their music that exemplifies their rather diverse approach to the writing of this music. An absolutely must listen as far as I'm concerned.

Hysteria - When Believers Preach their Hangman's Dogma
Trendkill Recordings, 2009
Genre: Death Metal

1. Sufferings Make Me Almighty
2. Your Kingdom Will Be Mine
3. Still Haunted by Flesh (Work or Torments Part II)
4. Art of Evil
5. The Unholy Creation
6. Lies for Religion Supremacy
7. Stroke Down by Disease
8. Blinded by Religious Doctrines
9. Les écrites blasphématoires





Hysteria isn't the type of band to crank out albums, but it seems they're content to wait until the time is right and they have material worth showing off, which is something I can totally respect. Once again I picked this album up when it was originally released. We finally have some fairly unique cover art and a really awesome booklet layout to match making this album totally worth buying. The biggest reason this is worth getting is the sheer and immense improvement over the past two efforts.

It's hard to believe this band ever sounded like "Abyssal Plains of Chaos", because "When Believers Preach their Hangman's Dogma" is such a stellar presentation of refined and well thought out modern Death Metal. It's almost a shame how overlooked this band is given how exceptional good the riffing is on this album. Not one bad song, mind you. I'm doing this review in 2018 and I've had this album in a fair amount of rotation when I'm in the mood for some excellently well written Death Metal. The truly best part of this release is that it's more than just a mere exercise in Death Metal performance, the riffs have some wonderful atmosphere behind them, while maintaining that crushing Brutal Death Metal vibe. Look at how "Stroke Down by Disease" starts? Awesome atmosphere right there before it takes off into really intense Death Metal. Hysteria haven't lost their melodic touch either because the main riff on "Still Haunted by Flesh" feels extremely influenced by the Black Metal band Dawn. However, melody has taken a back seat in favor of more brutal riffing for the majority of the album. It sounds like they are becoming more influenced by the heavy hitters out in Poland like Trauma, but they still blend in this interesting mix of Hypocrisy and Morbid Angel for good measure.

"When Believers Preach their Hangman's Dogma" is an absolutely superb album and sadly overlooked by the metal community. I think this is a rare gem in a world of mundane efforts. Maybe I'm getting more out of this material than others? But I really enjoyed everything they put together on here a lot. If you enjoy exceptional riffing that is more than just chugging and crushing tone, but a really excellent blend then this is a must listen. They may not be doing anything drastically new, but their particular blend of influences is unique enough to keep me coming back to this album.

Hysteria - Haunted by the Words of Gods
Adipocere Records, 2006
Genre: Death Metal

1. Haunted by Words of Gods
2. Controlled Existence
3. Martyrs of God
4. My Last Thoughts
5. The Valley of Hinnom
6. From Beyond Reality
7. Unfathomable Mystery
8. Work of Torments







I remember being surprised when this album hit, because I thought this project was done with just the one EP. I remember liking the EP back then enough to see what the new album would sound like. It was hard to sample music back in 2006 as if it wasn't really on myspace there weren't really many options, but I really liked the album title a lot. The cover was kind of weird though and a lot of other bands were doing very similar graphic design like Sinister, Hate, and Behemoth even. The layout and design of the booklet is pretty cool, but I just remember thinking it was already overdone by the time I got my hands on this release. It's like the genre of Death Metal suddenly hired the same graphic designer.

Musically "Haunted by Words of Gods" is way better than their EP. It feels like the band has managed to find more of a direction and got much better at blending together their brutal riffing with the more melodic passages. They do a very good job of hitting that brutal Death Metal sequence and the album pretty much hits you with this after the Exorcist sample laden intro. So, right from the start this album hits you pretty hard. The riffing is solid and reminiscent of a Suffocation meets Morbid Angel sort of blend. There's probably a decent amount of Deicide in here too, but not total worship like we hear with a band like Hate. Hysteria switches between the Brutal Death Metal style and a Melodic Death Metal style. Sure there are moments that are melodic and reminiscent of works like At the Gates, but a lot of the parts have more of Hypocrisy atmosphere to them, which is really wonderful as a lot of bands don't do the newer Hyprocrisy style well.

Production wise this blows the prior album out of the water. Everything is so much more powerful and I feel like I'm listening to real drum set! Albeit it's triggered, but better than a terrible e-kit snare sound. It seems like they put a lot more care into this album and the skill behind the riff writing is far more apparent.

In the end this is an enjoyable album. I liked it quite a bit when I first got it in 2006, but it has fallen out of rotation. Listening again after all these years, I'm not sure it holds up to the test of time for me. It's not a bad album to have on and some of the riffs are really killer riffs, but as a whole I have other releases that I find to be a lot better. Hysteria is taken steps in the right direction though, so with this release I looked forward to their next album a lot more.

Hysteria - Abyssal Plains of Chaos
Infernal Waves Productions, 2002
Genre: Death Metal

1. Taking Sides with the Devil... the Ritual
2. Endless Suffering
3. Spiritual Weakness
4. Vision of Chaos - Disruption of the Elements











I picked up Hysteria's debut release when it first came out and I've been following the project ever since. It's been easily a decade since I've listened to this EP and let's see if this holds up in 2018. Hysteria is a project that no one really talked about and I think I remember buying this as a random purchase on a label because I thought the cover looked cool. Even though this is likely long out of print, it's still pretty readily available on the internet at various locations.

The early 2000's were a weird production time for extreme metal, suddenly we had access to more affordable digital gear. We no longer had to rely on tape in the home studio and we didn't have to pay for fancy more analog driven studios. You could put an album together and it wouldn't sound like the early 90's harsh demos of the days of yore. However, there were some growing pains with the new technology... especially in the drum trigger market. Triggers sounded atrocious around this time, they've definitely gotten better over the years (nothing beats a real drumset in my opinion though). This Hysteria album sounds like it was recorded with an electronic kit on the drums and as a result it has some of the worst snare tone out there. The performance is great and a lot of early band recordings wound up on the cheap this way. Saves mixing time too, ah well... the guitars sound pretty good... the production was just something that stood out as I turned this one.

Anyway, musically this album is kind of all over the place. Maybe that's the real source of the band name in some respects. This four song EP ranges from the realms of more Brutal Death Metal to really nice Melodic Death Metal. It kind of circles around these ideas with split second switches at times, but other times the riffing will transform itself more seamlessly. Perhaps they're drawing some influence from the likes of Akercocke and blending it in with the Melodic Death Metal style we hear out of Sweden. There are even moments when they play Thrashier riffs that wind up having a bit more a Black Metal vibe, but this isn't very often.

In the end this is an okay start for a band. I would like to see them organize their musical ideas better on future releases. I can see why this release has wound up as dead stock in some distros, it's not terrible, but it's only okay. It will clearly get buried by the deluge of more solidified projects releasing higher quality material. Unless you're a really big Hysteria fan this is probably worth skipping.

Skinweaver

Skinweaver - Gratification Eternal
Great Dane Records, 2017
Genre: Death Metal

1. Apotemnophilia
2. Skinweaver
3. Malus Triumfat
4. Salvation
5. Kneedeep in the Flesh
6. Bastion of Butchers
7. Suffer Endless
8. Zombie Holocaust
9. Plague Bearer






Skinweaver was a bit of a random purchase on my behalf. I was picking up the new Hysteria album and while looking through the record labels releases I came across this release. The name and album cover screamed of "old school Death Metal", which I happen to love. Skinweaver reminds me of the Dismember song "Skinfather", so I was hoping the album was somewhere in that wheelhouse. "Gratification Eternal" is their debut album, with no demos prior and it's rare to find this quality out of the gate.

I feel like I'm seeing a bit of a resurgence of the old Death Metal style thanks to labels like Iron Bonehead, who seems to do everything the old way and maybe now Great Dane with more of a focus on Death Metal? After hearing this I'm going to start exploring their catalog more, because this debut from Skinweaver is absolutely incredible. It's everything I want from Death Metal, and this is coming from a person who primarily listens to Black Metal. I grew up with a lot of the old greats like Entombed, Dismember, Suffocation, Unleashed, etc. and Skinweaver definitely delivers on that idea. The really excellent aspect of this release is that it doesn't feel like a clone at all. You hear a myriad of influences in this album. You've got Dismember, Carcass, Sinister and old Hypocrisy all rolled together here and I feel like that's the core blend of their main approach. They stay heavily focused on creating catchy grooves and casting them amidst some crushing Death Metal. The production value of the album is excellent as well, everything feels very organic as opposed to the more modern sound where we don't really listen to real drums anymore. Some bands do okay with hyper production like Lost Soul, but most of the time it just sounds bad to me. Skinweaver has a really excellent compromise because it's certainly better production quality than early 90's Death Metal, but it sounds like we have real instruments being played. Based on their pictures of recording we're listening to the guitars driven by Diezel tube amplifiers, which gives a really nice crunchy tone to the guitars. The vocals sit nicely in the mix and have a ton of reverb on them which really works for this release, in my opinion. They never take over the mix either, which is great, because I hear that happen a lot, this way we can enjoy the riffs and this awesome powerful guttural shout their vocalist does.

In the end I was very happy with my random purchase and I'm going to have to look through and check out other bands on this record label. The booklet is a bit over simplified, but that kind of makes sense for a debut of a fairly unknown project. I'm just happy they went with pressing a CD instead of digital release only. If you miss the old days of Death Metal, well they are alive and well on this album. They pull it off without sounding like a clone and that is, by far, one of the most endearing parts of this album. A really killer debut and I look forward to whatever else they put out in the future now that this project is on my radar.

Apolokia

Apolokia & Inferno Split
Sombre Records, 2003
Genre: Black Metal

Apolokia:
1. Acherontis Avari
Inferno:
2. Hrdi a silni
3. Sjednoceni viron











Side Inferno: here
Side Apolokia:

It's been a couple years since we've heard from Apolokia and their latest movement comes two years after their last split with Dark Storm. As before this is a Sombre Records release, this time on 7" and limited to 500 copies. I don't see any hand-numbering on my copy, so I guess they didn't hand number all their releases.

This material came out about the same time as Katharsis' "Kruzifixxion" album, so the material isn't too far off from there. As I mentioned in the last review this project is closely related, however it isn't nearly as chaotic. "Kruzifixxion" is one of Katharsis' most chaotic efforts, so this Apolokia song stands pretty far removed from that. Which works out well because even though it has that Katharsis tone, it doesn't have that Katharsis atmosphere, so it's nice to hear a whole new spin on this.

Unfortunately, this is the last we heard from the project. Perhaps the two members couldn't find the time to work together, or M.K. just decided to focus more on Katharsis. Either way, this project has been put to rest and it's kind of a shame we never got a proper full-length out of it, because the music was pretty good.

Apolokia & Dark Storm Split
Sombre Records, 2001
Genre: Black Metal

Apolokia: In Ceremonial Circles
1. Infinite Warscream
2. Cemetary Shrines
3. Thy Eye and Claw of Evil
4. In Ceremonial Circles
Dark Storm: Kult Satan
5. Kult Satan
6. Infernal Desecration
7. Eternal Flame of Hell
8. Thy Unholy Light
9. In the Sign of Blasphemy




Side Dark Storm: here
Side Apolokia:

Being a fairly big Katharsis fan I somehow missed out on Apolokia and instead I got into them through the bands they did splits with. Their first 4-way split that came out before this one is something I'm missing, but someday I might track it down. Their original demo tape, I'm not so optimistic about, so my reviews really begin here. While I was reviewing Dark Storm these tracks happened to come on and I was really into them, so here we are. This is a 12" LP and is limited to 350 copies.

Basically, if you like Katharsis you will certainly enjoy Apolokia as the projects are quite similar. Apolokia is M.K. on guitar and drums with vocalist/bassist Azazel. I didn't realize M.K. also played guitar, but in Katharsis I think all he plays is drums. Either way, the Katharsis style is certainly strong in his writing style and you can hear that from the very start of "Infinite Warscream". The major difference is that his music doesn't seem as intensely chaotic as Katharsis usually is. So, it's not exactly a Katharsis clone, it just sounds quite similar. I'm sure they're recorded in the same Katharsis studio, which gives the production quality the exact same treatment, which works very well for this material. The only major off-putting aspect is that sometimes the material feels pretty messy in it's writing and performance. As if the songs weren't practiced very often, but just enough to do a recording. Despite that the material is still good with slightly less chaotic styled Katharsis riffing and generates that awesomely hateful atmosphere the project is known for. So, if you're a Katharsis fan you should also become a fan of Apolokia!

Gottlos

Gottlos - Infernal Pandemonia
Eclipse Productions, 2004
Genre: Black Metal

1. Glorious Conquest
2. Mystis
3. A Nocturnal Monologue
4. Kytheria (Astral in the Midnight)
5. The Witches of Symposium
6. Wrath of Katachthonium
7. Mesíášův Konec (Maniac Butcher cover)








Gottlos is another project somewhat related to Maniac Butcher that has probably been rather lost to the ages of time. I bought this CD around when it was first released and I think I listened to it once or twice back then and now we're in 2018 seeing if this holds up to the test of time. The music is composed by Greek musician Skylepthis and Barbarud Hrom from Maniac Butcher provided the vocal accompaniment.

Being related to Maniac Butcher I expect some degree of rawness and that's pretty much what we get with the first Gottlos release. The music isn't too bad, however, it is quite monotonous, which is probably the intention. Each songs has, perhaps, two to three riffs, if that. "Mystis" feels like it is only a single riff played for a few minutes. The major problem here is that while other bands like Gorgoroth and Horna have done a decent job with this approach Gottlos doesn't succeed in the same fashion. The riffing mostly feels okay with a few gems shining through here and there, such as the opening to "A Nocturnal Monologue" and there's even another riff in there that sounds quite good. The major problem and reason this winds up sounding so mind-numbing compared to other bands is there are no drum fills, except for one during the middle of "A Nocturnal Monologue". Skyleptis barely gives treatment to the rest of the drum set beyond snare, kick, and hi-hat. The beats rarely vary beyond a blast beat. The moments that do vary really stand out in a big way, because it's so weird amidst such over simplicity. The album closes with a Maniac Butcher cover and its a stark contrast because there are drum fills... so it's not that Skylepthis can't do them, he's choosing not to, which just make the overall release a bit more questionable in its drum arrangements. In fact, it almost seems like Skylepthis is learning drums as he is making this album, because the variation and complexity of the drum beats increases as the album progresses.

In the end, I'm not sure this was supposed to have more releases, but this wound up being a Black Metal one-off. While some of the riffing was enjoyable, the mind-numbing drum performance kind of killed the release for me. It really doesn't hold up well over time and I can't remember if I liked it a lot when it was first released. I can see why I forgot about the album over the years, because it didn't over enough memorable music for me to return to over and over. If you like incredibly simplistic Black Metal then you might find the lack of arrangements to be a feature.

Nhaavah

Nhaavah - Nhaavah
Unisound Records, 2002
Genre: Black Metal

Kings of Czech Black Metal
1. Death
2. I am Satan, I am God
3. Hate
4. Xenophobia
5. The Law
6. War
7. Nhaavah
Determination, Detestation, Devastation:
8. Determination of Life
9. Detestation of Humanity
10. Devastation of Church



Nhaavah is yet another side project of Vlad Blasphemer, this time only with Maniac Butcher's vocalist Barbarud Hrom. If you missed out on their only two releases, this self titled release compiles everything Nhaavah have ever done for the first time on CD. It was a fairly short lived project and seems more focused on playing fast than playing for anything else. This has one of the most ridiculous booklets I've ever seen, all the information and lyrics are crammed onto the very last panel and when you open the booklet it's just black inside. Probably one of the worst layout designs around.

If you're unfamiliar with Nhaavah you'll be surprised to see how short the songs are and how fast this album cranks through everything. This is almost akin to Black Grind, given the ridiculous speed with which the drums are programmed. Even though there are bands out there that can play this fast, it sounds ridiculous with the programmed drums, because the ride cymbal doesn't sound real so it's just some strange clicking noise. It's not constant speed, songs like "Hate" have lengthy sections that slow down, but most of it is pretty fast and a lot of the songs are around two minutes in length.

Maybe Nhaavah has more substance if your into more of the Grind style than I am, but Nhaavah is one of their projects that doesn't really have much for me. It might have a few moments where the riffs are pretty good, but it's very short lived. Nhaavah isn't trying to construct a Black Metal atmosphere, I think they're just trying to assault our senses with blisteringly fast music, it doesn't really matter if the riff is good or makes sense.

Nhaavah & Katharsis Split
Sombre Records, 1999
Genre: Black Metal

Nhaavah:
1. Detremination of Life
2. Detestation of Humanity
3. Devastation of Church
Katharsis:
4. Raid of Destruction (The Ninth Age)
5. I... Am... Redeemer








Side Katharsis: here
Side Nhaavah:

While I had heard both Nhaavah and Katharsis, I'll be honest, the reason I bought this was for Katharsis. This is Nhaavah's second release, the first being their only demo tape. Here they have a split 7" with one of Germany's finest. This is on the legendary Sombre Records and limited to 500 hand-numbered copies, of which I own #480.

The material on this split basically picks up where "Kings of Czech Black Metal" left off. The production is a little more clear, but that's about it. We still have the same blisteringly fast Black Metal played in under two minutes. The only reason the first song breaks the two minute mark is because there is an ambient styled intro. The insert of the 7" describes the music as "Raw War Black Metal" and I'd have to say that fits. It's almost as if this is what Marduk is trying to achieve sometimes, but they can only play so fast and they're a little more reasonable with adding memorable riffs into the mix.

Either way, Nhaavah certainly isn't for everyone and this project was fairly short lived. Focus on Maniac Butcher makes way more sense for these two musicians, in my opinion.  I sort of imagine Vlad mainly fooling around with this saying "see, we can play ultra fast too!" as a response for all the speed based projects that were coming out in the late 90's.