Black Metal

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Archgoat - The Light-Devouring Darkness (2009)

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    This Finish band plays the style of Black / Death metal that I dislike the most, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible for the sake of the review. The band had an 11 years hiatus and came back to deliver their satanic message with a vengeance. I must say that the sound quality of this album is exactly the similar to a low budget production circa early 90’s.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ruins – Cauldron (2009)

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    The metal heads from Ruins hail from Tasmania, Australia, and their music is indeed very interesting. The band is labeled as Black Metal and you can clearly hear the influences and some songs a very straight forward Black metal (track 5). Other songs are a different mutation of Black Metal that I have a hard time pointing out.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Old Wainds - Death Nord Kult (2009)

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    Old Wainds hails from Russia, and their sound is a quite interesting mix of Black Metal with some Trash elements and some Shoe-gaze elemets in between. “Death Nord Kult” provides us with a very good release since it’s the Black Metal we all like, but they add their own things to the mix, separating this release from the hundreds of releases every year.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    In Memorium – Lost To Antiquity (2009)

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    In Memorium is an American band that features members from several other bands, most notable the current vocalist from Abazagorath; Nihilist. This album provides us with 50 minutes of pure black metal that will pierce your ear drums. The music, while very primitive, is very effective in giving that perfect black metal feeling an album should have.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Black Messiah – The First War of the World (2009)

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    Black Messiah is one of those bands that is very hard to determine what kind of music they play. They combine Black Metal influences with Viking/Folk metal and they excel at it, creating a very nice blend of genres in a very diverse album. Every song offers different elements that will keep even the most A.D.D person paying attention all the way to the end.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Visions Of The Night – Nocturnal Militia (2007)

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    If you want brutal, you’ll get brutal, if you want blazing fast guitars, you’ll get blazing fast guitars, if you want monstrous drumming, you also get them. All of these elements and more are packed in “Nocturnal Militia”.  This war and occultism inspired outfit from Canada are here to stay and haunt everybody with their album. This album does not lack energy and brutality in any aspect, the production is crystal clear and the music is like a round of AK-47 shots.

    While the band style is more death metal oriented they have certain elements of black metal that make it an interesting mix of genres. The twelve tracks on this release are enough to keep moshing the whole time. And you will certainly want more.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hellsaw – Cold (2009)

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    This Austrian band plays a very unique blend of Black Metal. It’s harsh, melodic and sometimes even groovy. The combination of styles makes “Cold” a very entertaining album to listen to. I must admit that I was moving my head up and down with most of the songs of this album, since they provide a prefect combination of brutality and melody that I rarely hear from Black Metal bands.

    “Cold” is the band’s third full length album and it show how they have been evolving since playing mainly harsh Black Metal to a more balances but equally aggressive style. Musically this band has a lot to offer, this two man outfit manages to create a cold and depressive atmosphere only rellying on distorted guitars and blast beats that rival any other band of the genre.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Samael – Above (2009)

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    After their brutal single “Illumination” this album is even a step up from that. Samael is back and with a vengeance since they sound as heavy as in their beginning, but mixing some of their newer stuff as well. The opening track “Under One Flag” blows you away, and it sets the tone for this album.

    The drumming here is very fast paced and brutal, even for Samael, and it would blow away many black metal bands as well. I can probably compare it to good old Mysticum. But you can see that while it has some ‘real’ drums it’s heavily helped by a drum machine. But in no way this is bad, since it provides the perfect base for the songs of this album.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Blackguard – Profugus Mortis (2009)

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    The Canadians of Blackguard used to be called Profugus Mortis until they won a Nuclear Blast contest on myspace and got a record deal with them. I must say that I’m impressed with this band evolution from a symphonic black metal to a more Folk/Black metal band.  While they still maintain they black metal vocals, the music has been greatly revamped with folk influences giving the band a more dynamic sound and removing them from the ‘symphonic black metal’ clone band category.

    The only thing I’m disappointed they removed was the violin that separated them from other symphonic black metal bands. Other that this all their bombastic keyboards layered on top of excellent drum and guitar tracks gives this band an edge over any band from North America that plays this genre, and puts them in a competitive level against European bands that are masters of the trade.

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