Black Metal

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    Jumalhämärä – Resignaatio (2010)

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    Hailing from Finland, today we get one of the weirdest yet thought provoking releases of 2010. Jumalhämärä and their first full-length release in 14 years “Resignaatio”, come baring gifts with their highly deranged and experimental approach to Black Metal. The band combines elements of post-rock/metal, progressive metal, jazz, and Black Metal in a fashion that is not been achieved up until today. This band makes Solefald and such bands look rather straight forward and dull in their approach to music in comparison to what we find in “Resignaatio”.

    As an underground band for 14 years, Jumalhämärä is ready to take the stage and what better introductory card than “Resignaatio”. Opening the album with “Ecstasy in Blood – A Ballad”, for the first few minutes you might think that you are in for another raw mind-fucking BM release, but once you start noticing the different distortion, you will hear that there is something weird here… little do you know that after 5 minutes this song will explode into a full-on Post-Rock/Metal piece that will make your head hurt.

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    Jaldaboath – Rise of the Heraldic Beasts (2010)

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    Everything that has to do with the Templar Knights has been of great interest for us in the past, so when we heard of this band playing ‘Templar-inspired Metal’ we quickly jumped in and started listening to “Rise of the Heraldic Beasts”. To our disappointment, Jaldaboath is a terrible band, we can’t really pinpoint if it’s the stupid lyrics (like on “Axe Wielding Nuns” for example) or the terrible simplistic music and vocals (i.e. “Hark the Herald”).

    Just imagine a bad mix of Alestorm and Nekrogoblikon, with a lot less inspiration and a lot more repetition. Half the songs on “Rise of the Heraldic Beasts” are very repetitive and get to be very annoying after a few songs. The terrible vocals of songs like “Hark the Herald” and “Axe Wielding Nuns” really kill the mood created by a few nice keyboard arrangements and catchy rhythmical sections.

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    Noctis Imperium – Nihil (2010)

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    Out of the hundreds of bands we receive every month, we have three main categories for them: great, terrible, and average. Noctis Imperium is one of those that fit exactly in the average category, there is nothing really wrong with it, but there is also nothing impressive to this band. The songs are catchy and brutal, but asides from this you can fast forward in between songs and everything will sound the same.

    Hailing from Venezuela, the band does a solid job in creating energetic Death/Black Metal songs. The band’s guitar work is pretty solid and catchy, and the solos are very well placed in the songs, we venture to say that the guitars and drumming (courtesy of Nicholas Barker) are probably the strongest elements of this band, since the rest falls on the ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ category.

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    Hell Militia - Last Station on the Road to Death (2010)

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    Relentless and unpretentious are two words that immediately came to our minds when writing this review about Hell Militia’s latest effort “Last Station on the Road to Death”. The band features a wide variety of well-known Black Metal musicians of the ever growing French scene, and deserves worldwide attention because of their down-to-the-roots approach to mid-tempo Black Metal that will crush your soul after just a few minutes.

    After their powerful 2005 debut album “Canonisation of the Foul Spirit”, the band showed potential, but the elements were not completely aligned for them. Now, the band shows more musical maturity and a bigger focus on creating a nihilistic sound that never relies on 1000 bmp assaults or cheesy elements to create a sober atmosphere that Black Metal has been characteristic of in its early days.

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    Tenebrae in Perpetuum / Krohm – Split (2010)

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    Today we got a very raw and nihilistic split from Debemur Morti. Featuring two of the best Atmospheric Raw Black Metal bands of the recent years (unluckily Tenebrae in Perpetuum has decided to split-up). Clocking over 42 minutes of pure unadulterated atmospheric brutality, this split release features three songs from each band, and interestingly enough, almost every song is 7 minutes long (give or take).

    Kicking off the proceedings, we have Krohm and their three songs of very atmospheric and darkly constructed blasphemy. We particularly like how this one man band creates buildup in the first few minutes of each song and then it keeps the tension throughout the end. The vocals are a bit raspy and not extremely raw for us (unlike Tenebrae in Perpetuum), we also like that the music has many ‘traditional’ elements and keeps things on the Black Metal side of things but with a tick atmosphere.

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    Locrian – The Crystal World (2010)

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    Every once in a while we get a release that makes us listen to it more than normal since it’s so complex and different that we can’t really craft a solid opinion about it with only 3-4 spins. This month we have Locrian’s third full-length album “The Crystal World”, the band plays a very experimental mixture of ambient, drone, and some Black Metal and Post-Rock elements. This might sound like a handful, but it actually works very well for the flow of this release.

    “The Crystal World” is a very powerful emotional ride that spreads through 6 tracks. With the first track “Triumph of Elimination”, the band immediately sets the stage for this dark and minimalistic journey. In the traditional fashion of creating expectation, this track starts building up with samples and drones that seem to be gaining momentum but they also seem to never culminate. The ‘culmination’ section for us that need it, comes in the next track “At Night’s End”.

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    Sarath – Siste Indre (2010)

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    Norway might suck at basketball, football, and countless other sports, however, they are number one in producing Black Metal bands that can release cold and grim releases that will hypnotize you from beginning to end. Sarath is yet another one of those Norwegian bands that can kill with their music and don’t even break a sweat while doing it.

    “Sistre Indre” is the band’s (one-man band) first ‘full-length’ release in almost a decade of existence, and we must say that it was well worth the wait. Featuring 4 songs and around 31 minutes of music we wouldn’t really can this a full-length album. However, due to the repetitive nature of the band’s music, “Siste Indre” feels much longer and completely crushing.

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    Aenaon / Satanochio – A Parallel Zoetrope (2010)

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    All the way from Greece recently we got a very nice 7” split from Aenaon and Romanian Satanochio. In this short but sweet split we get to listen to another brilliant track from Aenaon and a different but equally intense song by Satanochio. Featuring one track per side, this 7” split is very nicely packaged and ready to become a collector’s item for fans of either band since it’s limited to 500 copies.

    Starting off on the Aenaon side, we get a Black Metal anthem with influences from Zyklon and other more experimental bands like Dodheimsgard and Ihshan. Aenaon since their mCD “Phenomenon” has immediately grabbed our attention and with “I, Tyrant” they show that they are masters at creating powerful riffs, interesting vocal melodies and blasting drum patterns that deserve the attention of any ‘refined’ Black Metal fan.

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    Maniac Butcher – Masakr (2010)

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    After a ten year hiatus Maniac Butcher returns with a powerful Black Metal release that will surely send a lot of crappy Black Metal bands crying to their garage wishing they could craft such hate filled anthems of destruction. The band’s original members Vlad Blasphemer and Barbarud Hrom are back in top form and ready to spread disease through the world of Black Metal.

    With six songs clocking around 30 minutes of hate filled raw Black Metal, it’s like the band never left the scene. Featuring a crystal clear production, the band sounds as raw as ever and their music crushes since the first riff. Haling from the Czech Republic, the band writes are their lyrics in Czech, so we can’t really know what they are singing about but all we care about is how brutal and chaotic their music is.

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    Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)

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    The masters of Progressive/Experimental Black Metal return with a super impressive release that tops anything they have done before this album. With “Axioma Ethica Odini”, Enslaved shows no signs of slowing down, compromising, or playing it safe. The band maintains the high musical standards they set with “Isa”, “Ruun”, and “Vertebrae”, and manage to push things a bit further on this long-awaited release.

    It has been years since we liked a Black Metal release as much as “Axioma Ethica Odini”, and through our listening experience of this brilliant album we can’t avoid using comparisons to Borknagar’s “Olden Domain”, Primordial’s “A Journey's End”, and Enslaved’s “Isa” among other is in terms of musicianship and innovation for their time. While there are many Psychedelic, Progressive and Experimental elements in “Axioma Ethica Odini”, the core roots of the album emanate from well made and aggressive Black Metal that is non-compromising and never feels watered down, but rather enriched by these elements.

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