Black Metal

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hacavitz – Metzli Obscura (2010)

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    Hacavitz is a Mexican two man apocalyptic outfit that creates very raw and brutal Black/Death Metal. Unlike many bands of this genre, we don’t hate them. The band is pretty good at creating rudimentary and harsh music that will make your spine chill. Using English, Spanish, and Aztec (or something like that) the band will haunt your dreams since the start of “Metzli Obscura”.

    We usually bitch and moan about the shitty quality that similar releases have, but we cannot complain about this with Hacavitz. The band’s sound is very dense and dirty, but it works wonders in creating a raw and thick atmosphere. With the chaotic feeling that “Metzli Obscura” creates, we have found the perfect soundtrack for a journey through hell.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Kraaker - Musikk fra Vettenes Dom (2010)

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    Whenever we get any album that says “Experimental” we are thrilled. Since we usually review tons of ‘regular’ stuff we are always interested in listening to something new and different. The music presented by Kraaker on “Musikk fra Vettenes Dom” cannot be considered an experimental band, but rather a ‘traditional’ Norwegian Black Metal band with different tuning at times and nothing else.

    However, Kraaker’s music is not bad at all. The band actually excels in creating powerful guitar driven melodies that do not sound like the million Black Metal clone bands we have on the scene these days. “Musikk fra Vettenes Dom” is actually a very solid first full-length for a band that shows substantial promise.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Frostfall – Dark Torments / Beyond The Dusk (2010)

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    Courtesy of Final Eartbeat productions we all the way from Italy we get Frostfall’s first two demos released on CD. We will be reviewing both demos separately in this space since they are huge differences between them. Hailing from France, Frostfall is a Black Metal band that is very raw and brutal in nature.

    The first demo “Dark Torments” was originally released in 1999 and you can really notice that by the way it sounds. Having very bad clicking and popping noises due to the low quality of the recording we almost thought our Home Theater’s speakers got damaged. However, there are some hints of quality in this recording.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Vomitor - Devils Poison (2010)

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    While Hells Headbangers is known for releasing very retro (and good) sounding releases, with Vomitor’s “Devils Poison” they have dropped the ball immensely. This Aussie band had done a great job with “Bleeding the Priest”, a very worthy debut album that gained them well deserved comparisons with Sodom, Celtic Frost and the all mighty Hellhammer. But with “Devils Poison” they sound like they should be heading back to their garage and record a few more demos.

    “Devils Poison” is a very chaotic release that has pretty much nothing going for it, the album gets boring right after track number one. We are not complaining about the raw and primitive sound the band has (which is characteristic of the early Sodom, etc albums), but we complain about the lack of creativity and even musicianship behind this release.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Thulcandra – Fallen Angel’s Dominion (2010)

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    Fronted by Steffen Kummerer from Obscura, today we have a very impressive band from Germany. Thulcandra comes with the slogan of “the heirs to Dissection’s throne” and this could not be any more accurate. The band excels at making Death/Black Metal music unlike anybody these days.

    The influences of Dissection and Emperor are clearly present, but the band takes this further with their own technical abilities. For a band that has been together since 2004, and has never release a full-length, “Fallen Angel’s Dominion” is an impressive achievement.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Jewish Juice – Hidden Into Rotten… With a Black Flame of Light (2007)

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    Hailing from Italy we have Jewish Juice. This Italian band plays a mean combination of Trash/Death and Black Metal. “Hidden Into Rotten” is the band’s second release and shows signs of a good band that needs to mature a little bit. The album mixes 3 very chaotic tracks with two tracks that are very solid, showing the band’s future potential.

    The band’s musical style needs to be refined a bit more since the combination of genres is sometimes annoying since there are several Death metal oriented tracks mixed with Black Metal songs, and we would prefer that those things are either properly combined or just pick one genre. This is usually the problem we find with beginner bands, they want to do many things but they can’t merge them together properly.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Jewish Juice – Soaring Above Death (2009)

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    After listening to Italy’s Jewish Juice second release “Hidden Into Rotten… With a Black Flame of Light” we were very interested to listen if the band’s talent was going to be consolidated into creating a better release than “Hidden Into Rotten”. For our general surprise the band has done a great job in maturing and crafting their own sound and not needing to throw a bunch of shit together in order to sound brutal or different. With “Soaring Above Death” we get 5 songs that really show what this band is capable off.

    In “Soaring Above Death”, the band has come to terms and decided to go with a Black Metal foundation that has Death Metal influences, but it’s never chaotic and badly constructed like on some songs of their previous release. The vocals still vary between growls and BM screams, but they feel more uniform and never get to be obnoxious.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Withershin – The Hungering Void EP (2010)

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    Today we have a short-but-sweet EP from this Swedish quartet that plays Black Metal. Withershin was formed since 2006, in just a few years has managed to release a demo, a full-length CD and this EP that feels more like a maxi-single since it only lasts 15 minutes.

    The three tracks in this EP showcase a mature band that plays a very solid Black Metal that would rival any of the other mid-level bands in Sweden and the world. Since there are only three songs we will use the dreaded song-by-song review approach.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Triumfall – Antithesis Of All Flesh (2010)

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    Hailing from Serbia today we have Triumfall, a Black Metal band signed on Infernus (Gorgoroth) Forces Of Satan label. After listening to this release for a few times, we still have mixed feelings about this release. The production on this album is somewhat crappy in our opinion since the drumming sounds very bad sometimes, but it might be what the band was shooting for.

    The band plays a very interesting Black Metal that is very melodic in nature and has plenty of keyboard highlight here and there. This makes us remember the old days of demo tapes we received from bands from countries like Mexico, where they used keyboard highlights on plenty of Black Metal releases. While this sounds good, it also sounds very amateur because of they way they are written, maybe the keyboard player has limited skills, but they sound a bit simple.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Setherial – Ekpyrosis (2010)

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    Long standing Swedish Black Metal underdogs are back with yet another brutal release that will be unleashed upon the world on June 14th. The band has always been playing second fiddle to the likes of Marduk and Dark Funeral, and we now think it’s their time in the (bigger) spotlight.

    With crushing drumming, hyper fast riffing and brutal vocals “Ekpyrosis” is one the band’s most brutal releases to date. We did not liked the band’s ‘new’ vocalist in their last album “Death Triumphant”, but now he feels more integrated into the band and ready to scream his lungs out in this fine release.

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