Black Metal

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Satan's Host - Power Purity Perfection...999 (2009)

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    When I first heard of Satan's Host back in 2000 I was a bit skeptical since they had been a Power Metal band in the late 80's and they just reformed under a new musical style, something that does not compute quite well. However after listening to their 2000 album "Satan's Host - Archidoxes of Evil" I knew the band was for real and their genre switch was a good move.

    "Power Purity Perfection... 999" comes little over one year after their "The Great American Scapegoat 666" and it shows an even bigger improvement on the band's musical sound. The band's style embraces everything from Black, Death, Trash and even Heavy Metal creating a very interesting mesh of elements that any metalhead would enjoy.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    One Master - The Quiet Eye Of Eternity (2009)

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    When you first hear this CD you are quickly taken to the early days of Black Metal with all its rawness and eeriness. One Master does a great job of capturing a timeless sound and reproducing it on their own way on a very well crafted second release called: "The Quiet Eye Of Eternity".

    The album production is the typical low-fi production that most of the BM bands of the time had, it gets a few minutes to really get used to it since in the first few minutes I thought there was something wrong with my sound system, but it quickly balances out. While I'm not a huge fan of this sound, it does help a lot in creating an haunting atmosphere when it comes to BM albums.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Lost God - Savage Souls (2009)

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    Featuring three songs, "Savage Souls" is one of the best EP CD's I've received in a while. Lost God hails from Belgium and they feature Arnaud Vansteenkiste Ex-Enthroned drummer, his brutal drumming skills is one of the elements that stand out the most in this release.

    Professionally recorded this release mixes traditional Death Metal elements with some hints of Black Metal here and there, and while the band is not super original, they do a good job at keeping the listener engaged during the 12 minutes this EP lasts.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Temple Of Baal - Lightslaying Rituals (2009)

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    Featuring members of Glorior Belli ( one of the best French Black Metal bands that I have reviewed recently) Temple of Baal plays some mean straight up Black Metal that many bands trying to be too ‘cult’ or overly symphonic need to pay attention to.

    My instant thought for comparison of this band is with Lord Belial, they both share the same approach to Black Metal, and I love it. The both play stripped down to the basics Black Metal that does not need the ‘we need to sound like shit to be evil’ production or the required tremolo picking riffs galore that makes you head hurt after a few songs.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Vetus Obscurum - Blood Revelations (2009)

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    Who ordered a cup of bad and uninspired Black Metal?, apparently Debemur Morti did when signing up to release “Blood Revelations”. This is another example of a band that sounds amazing on paper: Dario Derna from Abazagorath, Evoken, Funebrarum, etc on ALL instruments, Herb Burke (Drawn and Quartered) on ‘omega’ voice and Mike Nihilist (ex-Abazagorath, etc) on the ‘alpha’ voice.

    All of these names sound good on paper, but then you actually listen to the album you see that things don’t quite work out that way. Maybe it’s the annoying ‘out in the woods’ shitty sound with the intention of sounding more grim and ‘evil’. It can also be the aimless direction most songs take making them feel like bits and pieces pasted together for the sake of releasing something.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ruins – Front The Final Foes (2009)

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    This Aussie band is back after one year to spread their musical sickness through another very solid and release. “Front The Final Foes” feels like the perfect continuation to “Cauldron”.

    The band’s guitar sound is what drew me to their last album “Cauldron” and it’s still one of the first things that stand out when listening to this release. While all the songs do not sound extremely original, the band does a great job at creating a thick sounding Black Metal that is neither technical or complex, but it’s highly effective in achieving that ‘in your face’ effect that many bands fail at.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Way To End – Desecrated Internal Journey (2009)

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    As the album title states, this is a true journey into a very complex and multi-layered released that reeks of brilliance. Starting with a pretty weak intro I imagined I was in for another boring and pointless release, but once the first song it’s done, “A Step Into The Void” hits you in the face like a bag of bricks and the album never let’s go.

    There are some many things going on at once to fully understand what’s going on, but once you settle with the bands sound (kind of like Deathspell Omega at points), you are ready to fully digest the complexity of this deranged trip.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Tenebrae In Perpetuum - L’Eterno Maligno Silenzio (2009)

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    Hailing from Italy, Tenebrae In Perpetuum plays (as you can imagine) old school Black Metal. As you can also expect there is nothing ground breaking about this band or the album itself, but…. I don’t think that the band has never set out to re-shape a musical genre or be pioneers in anything. This review is also not a bad one, so keep reading.

    The band manages to re-create that bone chilling old school BM sound with perfection and throw a few things here and there to complement it. The traditional tremolo picking riffs are present from beginning to end of the album and they are very efficient in creating a bleak atmosphere.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Secrets Of The Moon – Privilegivm (2009)

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    “Privilegivm” is one of the weirdest sounding albums I have reviewed in the past few weeks, since the music is Black Metal, but has a different sound than most Black Metal releases that I’ve reviewed. But this does not mean the albums is band, all the opposite, I find it very fresh sounding in comparison to more ‘traditional’ albums.

    Secrets Of The Moon hails from Germany and have been playing music since the late nineties, and for “Privilegivm” being their 4th full album they have done a pretty good job creating their own sound and exploding it as much as they can.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Gorgoroth – Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt (2009)

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    Gorgoroth is finally band and with full strength. “Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt” is their latest release, and one of the best in their career. After getting rid of the ‘troubled elements’ within the band, Infernus focused 100% on the recording of this album. Writing all the music for it and recording all the guitars on the album, his creative forces were completely aligned for this album.

    The product of this creative process that took several years to complete (the music was written between 2006 and 2009) is a masterpiece that will clearly go down as one of the best Black Metal albums in history.

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