Necrohell - Where Solitude and Coldness Unite EP (2010)

Necrohell's Where Solitude and Coldness Unite 7" sounds about the same way as it sounds: cold and black as fuck. Coming off their debut Under a Sign of a Pagan Winter, one should not have any expectations other than the typical Norse style black metal drubbing he or she has experienced a thousand times before this. But I must admit, that the title track here (and the one original contribution) is appropriately vicious and feral, and the listener gets the impression he or she is being chased through the winter forest by SOMETHING, whether that be the baying pack of hungry wolves or a killer in a ski mask.

The tones are good and rich, the melodies predictable but potent, and the resonant rasping of Sorg is nothing to scoff at. For a song nearing 7 minutes, it also keeps its pitch and pace varied enough to perk the listener's interest. In fact, this one track is better than anything you'll find on the debut, and it's all owed to the experienced riffing of Ungod, who has been rather prolific through the 21st century Hellenic scene with Sad, Nargothrond and Slaughtered Priest. The other track, "38 Millimeter" is a cover of a Greek punk band called Adiexodo, who were around in the early 80s (I'd never heard them before), and Ungod does well to transform this into his usual streaming, black metal style. The opening notes are a bit repetitive, but you can definitely feel the punk undercurrent and how well it actually fits in this new format, with a rather 'warmer' feeling to the chords than the Necrohell original.

Anyhow, while this might not be the most impressive 7" out there, it shows a clear sign of improvement and possibly better things to come if Ungod can find time away from his numerous other projects. If you enjoyed the debut, then you'll probably love this, despite its obviously derivative style. Fans of Mayhem and Darkthrone will find its aesthetics familiar.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/necrohellcult

Dodsferd - Another Two of Your Scars and the World is Dead EP (2010)

While its contents are not all that memorable themselves, it's at least a relief that Dodsferd would quickly drop the drawn out and dull aesthetics they created for the 2009 album Suicide and the Rest of Your Kind Will Follows for this new EP. As a band often labeled 'black & roll', I feel that this is actually one of the better examples of them executing such a hybrid. But for the most part, this is straight up black metal with a lot of variation. In fact, each of the songs on Another Two of Your Scars and the World is Dead is in a realm of its own in terms of inherent composition and intent.

"Only Thorns Can Embrace Your Condemned Throne" opens with a feedback and then a thick, distorted bass line which is pretty damn punk. The feedback continues to climb while Wrath barks out the lyrics in a mixture of rasped and guttural clamor, and then the solid, rocking guitars enter the fray. As the track progresses, it cedes into a bit of tinny blasting and then some melodic breakdowns, but in all it's comparable to some of the past records like Cursing Your Will to Live. I do think that the riff after the 3:00 minute mark is quite potent, but overall the song was somewhat of a dud. As for the title track, this is much different, a slow piece with resonant, sparse guitars and march like drumming, above which the vocals howl out with voluminous torment. The guitars eventually pick up in complexity, but the overall effect here is one of a morbid calm.

I much prefer the latter to the former, even if it still needed something in there to push it past the precipice of memorable. But frankly, I found it more appealing than ANYTHING the band wrote for Suicide... I also really like the two toned cover art a lot, the classical imagery really seems to suit the band's messy logo and dark, nihilistic aesthetic. Another Two... is of course a limited press 7" (through Obscure Abhorrence Productions), so not everyone will be able to get their paws on it, but it's not really essential anyway. The quality here sort of dwells in the middle of their discography, though it's cool that the band seem to continue to broaden their reach, even if not every deviation is a strict success.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

Wolfnacht - Aima Kai Timh EP (2010)

Wolfnacht's Aima Kai Timh is probably the most racially charged record of Athalwolf's career, and it's made even more prevalent due to the use of English lyrics, something he has only flirted with in the past but takes center stage upon this brief release. I was concerned at first that he'd be headed straight back into the RAC rock influence that was present on a few of his past works (Night of the Werewolf EP, Töten für W.O.T.A.N.) which I had never really cared for, but this is still straight up atmospheric black metal similar to his then latest and greatest album, Zeit der Cherusker. The one possible concession here is that the vocals he uses are primarily a sort of grimy median between cleans and his usual black rasp, so it feels a little unique (though he's messed with these vocals in the past).

Anyway, this is an artist whose quality has fluctuated between releases, generally hitting his heights when he's writing a more direct brand of black metal (Heidentum) or a more glorious, symphonic variation (Zeit der Cherusker or his Zofos side project). The two tracks here didn't seem to move me in either one direction or the other. There are still a lot of organ and synth lines, and he's improved his drumming here, which feels expressive and constantly shifting to collide with the tremolo picking and orchestration, but very few of the actual melodies present have that same, inspiring quality as the prior full-length. The ringing guitar intro to "The Night Before the N.S. Revolution" seems to imply an eeriness that is not capitalized on with the rest of the track, which is largely mid-paced and forgettable melodic black metal. The other track, "The Dawn of the N.S. Revolution" is more desperate and accelerated, and the vocals are a bit better, the blend of synths and guitars more flush, but ultimately I wasn't so impressed.

As I don't associate with Wolfnacht's ideology, the lyrics don't hold a lot of interest for me, but I can understand how the angry pro-Aryan crowd might appreciate that they're presented brazenly in English, a language that simply more people speak than German. What it really comes down to is the music, and Athalwolf has written better in the past, though it's good to see that he's remaining firmly in the black metal camp here. Aima Kai Timh is an extremely limited recording, with only a few hundred 7" in circulation, but those into his Zeit der Cheruskers or Dawn of Heathens albums might want to get their paws on it if they can find one. As a starting point though, I'd much more recommend one of the two full-lengths I praised in the second paragraph.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

http://wolfnacht.com/

Grim Destroyer - Might and Majesty (2009)

About as obscure as these things go, Grim Destroyer is a solo vehicle for the black-hearted Chaosforos, who performs guitars and vocals for fellow Hellenic project Riddle of Meander. The style being played is not a hell of a lot different than their debut album End of All Life and Creation: raw and punishing black metal in the North European tradition of Mayhem, Marduk, Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal and so forth. I had not heard this record prior to my decision to embark on this Greek black metal study, so by the title and band name alone I was expecting something frankly powerful and hilarious, but that's not exactly the case. Might and Majesty is not the most banal and forgettable album I've heard from its scene, but it suffers a little from the general familiarity of the guitar patterns and lack of transitional variation and menacing undercurrent.

I do find Chaosforos' vocals appropriately hellish, here. There is no question that it feels like a man whose organs are being removed with surgical tools, or a werewolf on the scent of its prey. I also like that he uses a bit of deeper, clean tone (in "Thou Art Hecate", for example) as a counter point to the systematic rasping. I also dig the guitar tone, which is fuzzy and thin in the vein of Ulver's Nattens Madrigal or early Burzum, only not as noisy as the former. The bass is also a delight, tracing along beneath the guitars like a bumblebee following a paper airplane in flight. the drums are standard but effective, alternations of steady mechanical blasting and rolling double bass that queue up to the mid-paced or slower sequences. The real issues is just that, when you hear one Grim Destroyer song, you feel like you've heard them all. There's not a hell of lot of variety in the black riffing, and even where he hurls something out of left field (like the brief acoustics in the title track), it's just not that catchy.

It's sad that the most involving and engrossing piece on the album is the finale, an 8 minute minimalistic ambient track without much variation in itself. There were hints of this in the intro to "Nostalgia for the Dead", the most keyboard heavy black track on the album, but it's over 9 minutes long and quickly runs out of steam. At any rate, Might and Majesty is just not good enough to leave an impact crater in its wake. For those who are seeking out only the familiar and predictable sort of 'true' black metal that venerates their heroes, one can do a lot worse than Grim Destroyer, and it's passable background listening if you seek something effectively newsprint-toned in its aural palette, but not likely to be important in the long run.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

http://www.grimdestroyer.ulmb.com/

Slaughtered Priest - World Wide War (2009)

It's amazing the difference a single year can make in plotting the course of a metal band. Just one year prior, Greeks Slaughtered Priest had released a laughable if forgettable effort of blackened punk thrash called Eternal Goat Reign, with much of the trivial and smug perversity such a title would imply. But here we are, standing in the ashes with World Wide War, an effort that totally trumps its predecessor in composition, musical ability and seriousness. Now, I'm not saying they've lost their sense of humor here. Just take a glance at the hideous cover art, for example. But World Wide War is seasoned, voracious black/thrash of the highest order, exercising a sheer obeisance to the power of lightning riffing redolent of influences as wide as Venom, Kreator and Aura Noir.

First, the air raid siren. And then the excitement, as "W.C. (World's Coffin)" erupts into a series of nuclear riffs that leave most of their competition in this field in the fucking dust. Seriously, the guitar tone here is amazing, thin but coiled and potent like a salvo of poisonous serpents. The black rasp of the Ungod has been honed to perfection, with a clear influence from Mille Petrozza or the older Sodom albums, and the backing gang shouts are well timed without inhibiting the lethal momentum. There is not a single guitar riff in this whole song that DOESN'T make me want to kick the shit out of someone, and about the only thing working against it might be the duration (over 7 minutes), which might have been trimmed down about 60 seconds for good measure. Fortunately, they don't stretch their luck with the further tracks, which in general range from around 4-5 minutes, and thoroughly continue the fun, precision riffing. Favorites include the sleazy speed metal of "Lightnings of Vengeance", the repulsive "Rise Against Humanity" and the thundering "Unholy War".

There are, on occasion, songs in which the simpler, punk fueled chords don't really match the more intense lickage surrounding them, namely the band's namesake "Slaughtered Priest", but here the duo attempts to at least compensate with a bit of variation. "Proud to Be a Sinner" is another that I wasn't entirely sold on, with some pretty bland guitar patterns set to a banal blasted sequence. The lyrics are also, in general, pretty pedestrian (not that I expected more). However, I'd say that of the 40 minutes of play length, you're getting a good 28 which will fuel your lust for denim jackets, patches, whiskey, spikes and sluts, and there's no question in my mind that this one of the more positive evolutions I've heard in all Hellenic extremity. Not a perfect album, but a great one. Whether you're into Witchery, Impaled Nazarene, Aura Noir, Bewitched, Audiopain or any sort of hybrid of the two styles, you'll want to experience this loudly, break a few glass bottles and dance mockingly about the radioactive wastes while you wait to be devoured by mutant cockroaches. Fun, fun, and not a bad way to go.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (fear my bleeding war-hell)

http://slaughteredpriest.webs.com/index.htm

Dodsferd - Suicide and the Rest of Your Kind Will Follow (2009)

Possibly due to his prolific workload through the mid to later 'oughts, Dosferd decided to go with something different for this fifth album, Suicide and the Rest of Your Kind Will Follow. In place of the tear and rush of more aggressive works like Fucking Your Creation or Cursing Your Will to Live, Wrath had written a pair of extensive tracks which totaled about 37 minutes play length. I'm not sure this was the best of ideas, really, because neither has enough actual content to justify the time spent in its embrace, and in the end this is one of the least interesting albums in Wrath's entire discography. That's not to imply that it's mind numbingly terrible, because 'things do actually happen' within these compositions. Let's just say that through Suicide..., I hope he got this out of his system.

For most of the 20+ minute title track, I waited within the vice of ennui in hopes that something of note would actually transpire, but it takes quite a while. There are subtle shifts in the slow, melodic and sullen riffing patterns, and sprinkles of melody throughout the first 17 minutes, but it carries on at the same, dreary slog, like sitting in the bus station waiting for a ride while a steady rain drizzles down on the nearest pedestrians' umbrellas. For closure, the primary distorted riffing drifts out and we get some melodic feedback and cleaner strings, but then, this is in itself not worth the time you spent getting here. "His Veins Colored the Room" opens with a more curious, tortured segment, ringing guitars set against thudding percussion while Wrath waxes tormented throat exercises, and then a better, melodic course than the first track sets in, which is at least catchy for 2-3 minutes before it too grows tired. Strangely, this is the most 'pretty' you'll ever hear Dodsferd throughout its entire lineage, a clear contrast to the more caustic creations of his past (and future).

Though it's probably the intention, I don't think the album ever becomes so dire and emotionally poignant that the listener would want to kill him/herself, but rather just to stand out and press the 'stop' button. Now, make no mistake about it, this is a solidly produced work, not an amateur roll in the hay like the Dodsferd weak debut Desecrating the Spirit of Life. This is crafted to grasp the listener's heartstrings and then pluck them off one by one, but it makes the critical mistake that many such black metal (or doom metal) recordings often do: long, uninteresting compositions do not = emotional desolation. One does not need to stand around staring at his shoes for 20 minutes in order to feel a reaction to loss and solitude. Suicide... feels like nothing more than a waste of time, with only subtle variations involved and none of these bearing any memorable fruit. I understand this was thinking outside of the box for this Hellenic outfit, and trying on a new set of clothes, but as the man proved with Death Set the Beginning of My Journey, he can rock with venomous, nihilistic youth. I really don't want to hear 'retirement home' Wrath, if you know what I mean.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

Acrimonious - Purulence (2009)

Acrimonious is yet another Greek black metal project to involve members of Stutthof/Acherontas, who seem to have been quite busy in the year 2009 (Acherontass' side project Nihasa, and Stutthoff digging up some old tracks to release as an EP). This is a distinctly more straightforward take on the genre than their mainstay Acherontas, in that there are far less synthesizers and atmospherics involved, but like a lot of the work they've done in the past, there just never seem to be those truly unhallowed riffs or glimpses of genuine malice tearing through the fabric of composition. That's not to say that Purulence is a bad debut, because its production values are solid and there is some variation in the track list, but ultimately it ends up just another, unsung ripple in the broad, Norwegian wake.

Firstly, I'm not sure about the decision to have an 11+ minute track, "Call to Disorder", right up front. The song sounds enormous, with doom-like black riffing and tiny trails of discord through the majority of its playtime, but spurts of accelerated blasting to breach the monotony. Yet the guitars, as rich and up front as they sound, never mold themselves into anything interesting. Thankfully, none of the other tracks feel so bloated. "Dissolving Spirits" and "Angel Withdrawn" are faster, with flights of tremolo picking or rushes of low-end chords that channel the charnel influences of Bathory, Mayhem, Emperor and so forth. Several of the other, slower pieces like "Purulence" and "At the Portals of Daat'" are better at managing their individual atmospheres, the latter involving some of the best, dire melodic breaks on the entire album. "Spirit's Eclipse" is probably the best overall, with the warped guitars in the intro and a subtle, shining escalation to the streaming guitars, but even this is just not exemplary.

The lyrics here were rather interesting, if a bit jumbled. Loads of blasphemous, thoughtful imagery are rushed before the readers' eyes with far more complexity and curiosity than the music really permits, and it's just a shame that such effort wasn't placed in the actual notation. The vocals are flat out dull throughout, a typical grunt and rasp that never achieves any sense of syllabic integrity or menace, an open throat almost phoning in the stirring imagery. Often I was reminded throughout of several of the Swedish 'orthodox' black metal bands like Ondskapt, but mostly just in mood and the obvious attempt here to be simple and eerie. I was taken here by the Greeks' poetic insight and Purulence's tactful production, but the actual musical does not dwell upon the conscious for long, and I must reiterate that Acherontas seems to be the best decision these two have made in their careers; most of these parallel projects don't live up.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (where the rays of light do not reach)

End - End III (2009)

Well it turned out that the first End wasn't the end, and that the second end also wasn't the End. Six years beyond that, the End arrives once more in its third manifestation of precocious, storming Hellenic black metal. Immediately, End III trumps its predecessors with vastly superior cover art. No more a gray, empty miasma will adorn the band's face, but a hooded mystery within a gorgeous, rich black and white woodland illustration. Points there for drawing in the listener's eyes, but unfortunately, End III does not musically hold up to its elder chapters. Not because the band have somehow devolved in ability, but because the dark atmosphere and mood characterizing the sophomore is much reduced here, supplanted with some study assembly line blasting that sounds like a hundred other acts in the field.

I'm not saying that the prior album was brilliant in its balance of dark ambient pieces, dour acoustics and more aggressive surges, but there was a particular charm to it that I enjoyed. On the End III, it takes even a few tracks just to encounter something interesting. "Catastrophe" has a half-decent, discordant breakdown in the bridge, but it's largely just a straight burst of blast with angry sounding sheens of higher string axe-work and growling. "Self-Eating Mass" moves straight into another blast-beat, though admittedly it lets up in its bridge for some sparser guitars. After this, the album starts to take on more variation. "Still in Flesh" and "In the Womb of Sick" feature, slower, dissonant guitars, not unlike a Glorior Belli or a simplified Deathspell Omega. In fact, there's a lot of this post-black appeal to the album, as it's also incorporated into "Lavish Gloom" and "Megalomania". To some extent, this is a more modern and experimental effort than the previous Ends, but it's not walking on untrodden ground.

For its production alone, End III is superior to what the band have previous released, as the guitars get a good even tone and the vocals sound more piercing or cavernous as the voices shift between growls and bloodied rasps. It's competent and technically more involved than that 2002-3 period, in particular the tighter drumming and the complexity of the guitars. But in the end, it's not all that harrowing of an experience, and despite End II's crudeness, it was at least appreciably haunting. End now seem to have the skill and penetration needed to rub horns with the faster, furious acts out of Norway, Poland and France, but it's hard to remember much of the 50 minutes of dissonant, devilish dissemination on the recent End of their evolution.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/endaequitas

Cry of Silence - Wandering Through Pagan Times (2009)

Walking Through the Eternal Tragedy was a cold sounding debut, but while I could appreciate the actual production and the wrist slitting torment of the vocals adrift over its miasma of frosted riffs, the actual composition of the music felt painstakingly average in scope, a rustic mirror of Burzum's Filosofem. Well, there's not a lot that has changed stylistically about Granath's sophomore Wandering Through Pagans Times, save that it's an even noisier, tortured clamor of strained depression than its predecessor, and to that effect more effective upon the listener's psyche. Oh, and the incorporation of female vocals which occasionally wail off against the razor strewn guitar tone and tinny, steady beats.

The intro here is quite lush, with rural samples of crackling fire and ravens set to the female vocalist' mourning, Medieval melodies. Certainly this built an enormous expectation, but once the next track arrives, "Nocturnal Silence Creeps", you are immediately returned to the frigid tones of the debut, as longing guitar melodies careen off a subdued substrate of fuzzed chords. Right away, you can tell that this will be the sort of black metal effort in which certain rhythms drone on for just too long, with no internal variation or surprises in store, and yet to Granath's credit, most of the longer pieces (many are 8 or 9 minutes) do contain atmospheric breaks and tempo shifts. Unfortunately, their presence alone doesn't always make the compositions any more cohesive, and the transitions, while not exactly clashing against one another, feel dull and uninspired in songs like "Tears of Mother" or "Forgotten Land", which is the most bloated piece on the disc...

I do like the way the album sounds, as it recalls works like Filosofem or Weakling's Dead as Dreams, in particular how the riffing interacts with Granath's squawking, screaming vocals, but there were only a few points later on in the album ("Last Tears of the Wolf", "Strength Over Weakness") at which I felt the guitars really came together for some truly sad, engrossing melodies that captured and plucked away at the emotional strings. The female vocals are sparse and well implemented through the record, and again, it's not often a band can just sound this miraculously frozen. Wandering Through Pagan Times should have been titled Wandering Through Winter Times, because you truly get the impression that you're on some solitary stride through the landscape of dead trees and ice capped hills, counting the breaths as they void the heat from your body.

It's a bit more varied and colorful than the debut, but in the end I really felt as if it still needed something to force its way deeper into the soul. Effective mood music for the late months of the year (provided you live in a temperate or subarctic area), but little more.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (this land is for no one to see)

http://www.myspace.com/cryofsilencepagan

Sad - Enlightened by Darkness (2009)

After a sharp spike in quality from the debut Total Nothingness to 2007's Curse in Disguise, Sad were en route to becoming on the stronger stock black metal outfits in Greece. This momentum was drawn to a halt with Enlightened by Darkness, the band's third full-length, which seems like a step back from its predecessor, but let me qualify that statement by saying that little has changed in terms of the musical content. Once again, one should not be misled by the band's moniker: this is hardly the 'depressive' sort of material you might be expecting, but instead a driving, melodic beast with fully Scandinavian influences from Burzum, Mayhem and their like, and a strong guitar tone that dominates the recording.

As with the prior albums, these guitars clutch the steering wheel and never let them go. Sad is foremost a band about the riffs, and it feels like the rasped drawl and an admittedly competent drum performance seem to remain in the back seat. For that reason, there's just not a lot of interesting layering within the songs. They depend wholly on how damn catchy the guitars are, and though some thought was placed in the construction of notes, a lot of songs grow tired in short order. Particularly, these are the longer pieces like "Sweet Loss" or "Ignored", which move with a melodic swagger somewhere between Mayhem and Bathory but simply cannot seem to justify 7 and a half or 8 minutes of constancy. The same goes for "Let Snow Cover the Earth", which opens with a fairly dull blast sequence and then spit its one brighter, emotional riff before exhausting all the surprises in store.

Better are the shorter pieces, like "Soul Scars", which opens with another of these thick, streaming elegies and then manages to belt out a cruel rock groove in the bridge redolent of a Hellhammer or Darkthrone. Or "Destroy Them", which is straight cruising mid-paced black metal following a similar, mean sounding course with brief fits of acceleration. It almost seems like the more drifty and dreamy the band grows here, the less potent and memorable they become. It's a shame, really, because these guitars have great production, the drums crash along appropriately and they're clearly solid as cement. Ultimately, Enlightened by Darkness just doesn't leave the same impact on the listener as A Curse in Disguise. Granted, it's still better than the debut, but not by a large margin.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/thimios/