Craft - Void (2011)

Void is an album that had sort of the opposite affect on me as its predecessor Fuck the Universe. Here is one that I quite liked upon its release, but have gradually grown a little bored of throughout the years. It sort of mirrors that Darkthrone era from 1996-2006 in its bleakness, only I happen to find all of those records more memorable. Actually, I don't want to complete drag this one through the dirt, because there's a lot going on here that I do like aesthetically, more going on in fact than what's on those Norwegian records, and in the right setting I'll still spin it, but often I'll pick and choose particular tracks rather than crave the experience as a whole. I can promise that it is as grim and apocalyptic as anything else they've ever put out, so...no worries there.

This is dense, slow, and atmospheric, with a selection of those simple Hellhammer/Celtic Frost derived grooves being sliced through by the tremolo picking parts. I'm glad for that exchange, actually, because it makes tunes like "Come Resonance of Doom" or "The Ground Surrenders" somewhat listenable. It isn't until "Succumb to Sin" where those leaden, thick rhythm guitar riffs really pull their own weight with an actually amazing riff, and that's my favorite track on the album with ease. A lot of the other patterns here just feel a little stale and leaning upon the atmospherics to get by. Another highlight are the eerie melodies in "Bring on the Clouds", but the latter half of Void is dominated by these longer songs in which I don't feel entirely fulfilled, they impress me in parts but can become a burden in their entirety. There is one track there, "I Want to Commit Murder" which has some faster riffing to break it up, but that one doesn't have a lot of payoff even when it slows back down with its thuggish bridge riff.

The vocals and consistency of mood here do a lot to keep it coherent; the former as resonant and evil as ever, though they do feel somewhat monotonous along the gray din of the songwriting. Yeah, this is an album you 'hear' by looking at the cover, and vice versa. It's certainly playing within the confines of Craft's tookbox, and suckers for its influences, or the slower, rawer side of black metal or black & roll will find that it stays pretty truthful to the aesthetics, but it hasn't aged for me as well as the albums on either side of it, and these days it's the last in their discography that I'm likely to revisit, though I'd throw "Succumb to Sin" on a condensed compilation of tunes if I were introducing someone to their music. It's competent, it's Craft, it's certainly not bad or even mediocre, the lyrics maintain the upgrade they got with Fuck the Universe; but it's down the trenches for now.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (Old, deformed and barren)

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Morgue Supplier - Mastering the Disease (2026)

Driven by inhuman, mechanical blasting rhythms that collapse and contrast against its more meandering, atmospheric grooves, Mastering the Disease seems a fit evolution for the previous Morgue Supplier record, Inevitability and its subsequent single tracks. But where its stylistic frame is comparable, there's something even harsher and more 'checked out' sounding about some of this newest material. A collision of death, grind, industrial vibes, even some noticeable progressive elements in the structuring, they really swing for the fences. I'd liken it to a sort of 'cybergrind', only you replace almost all of the futuristic (or at this point, retro futurist) synths and sound effects with loads of dissonant, death metal guitars more central to that genre, and a gruesome vocal exhibition which is actually quite detailed and technical as it's laid out.

A good example of the varied carnage this band can create of its listeners would be "Pupils of Insularity", starting off with a pensive flow, cleaner melodic guitars and thick bass, almost Godflesh-like vibes, which escalates into a head-spinning, dissonant bender that feels like you're testing a drum machine to hear how fast it will go before exploding; all the while the other instruments crash along with abandon and Paul Gillis wretches and sneers and vomits all over the riffing. This is not for the faint of heart, anyone wearing a pacemaker, or anyone retaining a warm view of humanity. Other dizzying tracks include the psychotic "Annihilated Thinker" with its broken beats that descend into strange sampling and drugged, dissonant riffs that ooze around the meat of the distorted bass-lines. "Next World Consumes" is a harrowing endscape soundscape, oppression thicker than concrete, but by the time you hear that you're probably already either dead or suffering a severe headache.

Thankfully, if you DO survive that, the closer is a brilliant dark ambient track, "Indifferent Majesty", which is one of my favorites on the album, even though it's completely different to everything before it. Spacious but intense, it shows the flip side of what these creators are thinking but from an entirely different, non-percussionist perspective. The cover art here also reminds me a lot of the post-modern cyberpunk/body horror film Tetsuo: the Iron Man by Shinya Tsukamoto, and it unquestionably might serve as a sort of aural counterpart to that visual experience. This is the future, here, ugly as fuck, and not what we were hoping. While not as brilliantly riffy as the band's eponymous 2016 album, my favorite, and a little less sublime than Inevitability, Mastering the Disease is still very intense, with just enough devil in the details, especially the myriad abusive vocals and provocative bi-polar shifts between blasting and grooves that litter its debris-ridden labyrinth of noise.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

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Craft - Fuck the Universe (2005)

If you asked me to choose a favorite Swedish black metal for all time, I can't promise that this record would win the honors, but I'd absolutely be taking it down off the shelf to compare and contrast it against the other picks. Fuck the Universe elevated the band's nihilistic ravings to an entirely new level, as the Chaos symbol and title imply, we've gone beyond crushing mere humanity and/or Christianity to everything in all of existence, and I think that sentiment is reflected well by Craft's increased devotion to songwriting. I never really buzzed about this one enough back in the day or on my earlier lists; it was something I enjoyed upon first exposure, but has aged really well with time, and obviously grown on me more than anything else they've released. What's more, it does further distance itself from its more overt influences.

Yes, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost and Darkthrone still account for the DNA of the sound here, but it's been innovated upon, with a more layered and nuanced approach. Mood and melancholy are measured off against the grimness of the vocals and genre conventions, and the songs always give themselves enough time to express their ideas while absorbing the listener fully; we hear this in the 7+ minute "Thorns in the Planet's Side" with its spacious, doomy atmosphere, or the churning finale "Principium Anguis' with all its thundering fills and soul-crushing riffs. But another element that I really enjoyed here is that they started to incorporate a little bit of a black/thrash vibe ("Fuck the Universe") which reminded me of the direction Aura Noir had started to head in, or "Xenophobia" which has these similarly thrashy pulses and grooves which capitalize on the surging evil verse riffs. They explore far more material here than on the prior records, the 51+ minutes offering you a lot of range while also honoring all of what they brought to the table from 2000-2002.

Vocals still sound as nasty as ever, but they've got a lot more to compete with musically, which is where Craft have truly developed here. I think the drums and bass lines stand out more here too, there's just a more organic vibe to the entire recording that reminds me a lot of some of the black & roll stuff put out by a Satyricon or Sarke. It's robust and clean, but all of that sinister attitude from the band's riffing and singing is fully intact. Fairly refreshing when you consider that a lot of the 'necro' black metal bands shy away from such production improvements in order to retain the icy rawness. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but I don't feel as if it would achieve what Fuck the Universe does with this sort of atmosphere. A phenomenal album, the first off my shelf when I am in the mood for this band, with a good amount of content and plenty enough ideas to fill that time. Craft at their finest, with at least 4-5 songs ("Fuck the Universe", "Terni Exustae - Queen Reaper", "Xenophobia", etc.) that would make my highlight reel of their whole career. Also: better lyrics than the first two albums by far.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10]

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Craft - Terror Propaganda (2002)

Terror Propaganda is another of the early Craft records which has so many similarities to the earlier post-Soulside Journey Darkthrone material, back when those Norsemen were first exploring black metal, that it's not hard to understand why some were calling it a knockoff. But when you dig beneath just the surface impressions I think there's plenty going on here to enjoy...are they paying tribute to their more established peers? Absolutely. The black/white cover with the pose (but hey no fire breathing!). The entirely colorless, nihilistic lyrics and pure malevolence created through the riff progressions and vocals. The first song here is even titled "Ablaze". But it's a damn GOOD tribute, is the thing, and never tries to hide it, and in exploring this sound, once again develops a few ideas of its own that make it eminently re-listenable.

They did drop a bit of that Hellhammer influence here, especially in the guitar tone. Some of the slower, oozier riffs have disappeared, although not entirely, and you'll recognize it in songs like "Reaktor 4". In fact, much of the material here is still mid-pace cruise mode, but that's also where they come up with a lot of their darker guitar patterns ("The Silence Thereafter"). The tremolo picking guitars have evolved from the debut, and more confidently take the lead on some of the tunes, but they've also got some layers of atmospherics or melodies that will appear at the edge of perception to elevate the material. Some would say that the Hellhammer bits have transformed into the 'black & roll' school of riffing, and that's true, but once again one of my favorite parts of the recording, for example in "Hidden Under the Skin" these bad ass guitars balance out nicely against the more wistful melancholy of the licks in the mid-paced blasting sequence. And "False Orders Begone" is an amazing use of that Hellhammer vibe into something that feels fresh with Mikael's nasty vocals slathered all over it.

They still use some of the crazy screams here, and they feel more bloody and fresh-killed than on the debut, adding more depth to the heights. I would say that the overall structure of the album is slower, but they never become boring, always exploring some ideas to flesh out the compositions which are usually only 3-5 minutes to begin with. The drums are tinny and efficient as was popular for this necro niche of black metal, but I didn't notice a lot of bass presence throughout, it's certainly taking more of a back seat than Total Soul Rape, but not absent. We've still not hit the peak of the Craft yet, and this one isn't quite so diabolically fun as the debut, but I'd say musically it's one I place just a stride beyond that. It's a little colder, more atmospheric, and numbing, but still has tasteful evil melodic licks and dark, powerful grooves.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (We are messengers)

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Craft - Total Soul Rape (2000)

Craft was such a cool band to see at the turn of the century because they were already playing this retro brand of necro black metal only a decade or less since the originals. The Darkthrone parallels were obvious here, from the black & white photography on the cover to the sound that was heavily reminiscent of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost. That said, they've got plenty of personality unto themselves, with a few creative riffing ideas that they were adding to that legacy, some truly nasty vo-kills and an unapologetically dark and depressive attitude that is on full display throughout the lyrics. The debut Total Soul Rape was my first exposure, and while I enjoyed it to an extent, the years have definitely given me a greater appreciation for its brash charisma.

You've got that fuzzy rhythm guitar tone circa Hellhammer, the difference is that Craft will burst out into these tremolo picked evil riffs or blasted messes that were taken from the earlier second wave stuff. The stuff is pretty saturated, the drums rocking out with a nice crash and clutter to them as the bass lines just churn back and forth below. The vocals have this hideous presence front and center, as I think was the intention, but everything else is also pretty clear and loses no potency against Mikael's formidable rasp. Most of the tracks have this really memorable feature to them, also, like the frilly, whipping leads in "Death to Planet Earth", the climactic dissonant grooving riffs of "(Desolation) Death", or the doomy Hellhammer riffs in "Past, Present, Dead". The band might seem purposefully raw and unrefined on the surface, but they were good songwriters even from this earlier stage, even the debatable choices on this record like the weird wailed vocals that occasional appear seem deliberate and effective atmospherics.

Lyrically it's bleak; not in a 'bad' way (is there a good way?), but just about every song here is apocalyptic in scope, supremely nihilistic and misanthropic, whether it's teabagging Satan or not. So in other words, it's your average 90s black metal approach which earns the tile of 'grimness', and let's face it, when we gaze upon its Darkthrone-like title with the splash of red/orange in the logo/title, that is exactly what we would expect. Total Soul Rape is not my favorite release from them, but it's also got a lot more longevity to it than your typical newspaper-tone necro-black metal recording, of which there have been countless released since this one (and a lot before it too). This really holds up, and I had fun listening to it here in 2025 as much or more than ever in the past. It's like A Blaze in the Northern Sky if you turned off the air conditioner and cranked up the evil instead.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (purest noxious water)

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Sarke - Endo Feight (2024)

Sarke has always had those weird, interesting album titles, but Endo Feight ("End of Eight") is either the best-planned, or most purely prophetic of them, since this would prove the last of their studio efforts and it might have been set up that way before it was even recorded. Fear not, though, this album is an absolute banger, a celebration of all that had come before it, with a few hooks of its own but largely serving to solidify their consistent track record. The lineup is still the four 'classic' guys that had been with the band the most: Nocturno Culto on the vocals, Sarke on the bass, also returning to his traditional drum role from his other bands; Steinar on the guitars and Anders on the keys.

Everything is on the table here, the structured and simplified black/thrash which is more drawn from that old Swiss school than so many of the other bands in the style which mimic your Venoms, Slayers or early German thrash records. The proggy influences here aren't always worn on the sleeves so much as they are packed into the meatier riffing progressions, but you also get a lot of those amazing synths and pianos, showing the same restraint Anders always does. These create the dramatic atmospheres the guitars themselves wouldn't be capable of in their current configurations, without ever stepping on anyone. There are some choppy tunes here with a lot of chugging, like "Death Construction", or darker, bluesy grooves as in the closer "Macabre Embrace", and they even toss us an almost pure trad black metal track with "In Total Allegiance" which only adds to the sort of ouroboros vibe of keeping their endgame consistent with their opening salvo, or in this case, their roots.

Nocturno sounds amazing, and I will truly miss his voice in this project, even though I can still experience his work in Darkthrone. But that's the weird thing about Endo Feight. I usually feel some loss when a band I love dissolves. In this case, I feel like Sarke, NC and company really explored this dimension they wanted to splice up between black, thrash, doom, 70s rock, prog, and so forth. Nothing more is owed. Or needed. The closing tolls of "Macabre Embrace" say it all. They gave us EIGHT albums that I've ranked from merely 'very good' to superb, and other than a small handful of tracks which one might relegate to the 'just okay' category, I could listen to any of these in its entirety without needing to skip anything. That's pretty high praise, and the fact that these albums are stamped with a timelessness through their blend of styles and top notch production ensures they are nothing I will ever leave behind. I salute you, gentlemen, one of the best and most consistent bands most people hand and will have never heard of. Success in all your other projects, and thank you for this amazing slew of music that I can never repay in more than praise.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (Resting in the damp ground)

https://sarkeband.bandcamp.com/

Sarke - Allsighr (2021)

Allsighr is the first Sarke album where I detect a hint of color to the cover choice. Maybe it's just my imagination that there's a bit of blue painted in there with the blacks and grays and whites, maybe even a little brown, but it makes a little bit of aesthetic since as the band seems to have become so confident and proficient in its sound that it's almost like they are emerging from some larval stage. I don't think one is as expansive to their sound as Gastwerso, but its clearly one of their best-rounded, memorable efforts that takes all which has come before as a toolset to write some entirely kickass material which, for me, almost rivals Viige Urgh.

Yes, the whole enchilada of the Norwegians' sonic package is brought to bear upon their fanbase, and anyone else who has the pleasure of encountering their incredibly underrated catalog of music. The first clip of "Bleak Reflections" will have you thinking they've embraced their more traditional black metal roots, but that is merely a ruse, as they will soon dial it back into the mix of minimalistic thrash aesthetics, black & roll stylings, a little progressive rock in the use of several of the synths and song structures, and that doom vibe which has never taken over their style completely but deserves mention in the conversation. The tunes here are very well composed, balanced, always possessive of the band's unique mystique ("Funeral Fire", "Through the Thorns"), and never shying away from trying a riffing pattern they haven't hit upon before. Cato Bekkevold (ex-Enslaved) does the drums here and they sound as crisp and professional as any of his forebears.

Allsighr is pretty amazing. The production is clean and effective, every note hitting exactly where it needs to on your aural palate, and every instrument and vocal mixed with lethal clarity. The album thrives in both its harsher, grooving moments and the calms, of which there are a number in the intros/segues as well as the ambient/piano piece "Sleep in Fear". It's extremely accessible, which is another reason I'm shocked that this band never got much huger than they did. Perhaps it's just not 'extreme' enough if we're talking about the black metal genre as a whole. It's not going to spin heads off necks, it isn't blasting at a million miles an hour, the vocals are cutting but never overbearing, the symphonic ingredients are a minor embellishment and not a Wagnerian tour de force. But this is SONGCRAFT, by experts, who catch vibes from the aether and ride them to dark, pleasurable heights.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (Obsessed with what's below)

https://sarkeband.bandcamp.com/

Sarke - Gastwerso (2019)

Gastwerso capitalizes on the success of Viige Urh with a few minor tweaks, but I was really satisfied that they continued with this brighter, more kinetic-sounding production style, just as clean as most of the prior albums, but here the guitar riffs sound a little more sharp and cutting. Part of this is the emphasis on some heavier material, for instance the tremolo black metal riff explosion in the middle of awesome opener "Ghost War". There's also a little more mystique to this album, perhaps a more Eastern influence to the melodies in the synthesizers that make it all a bit more exotic and evil. I don't know that this one can match its predecessor blow for blow, but it's another excellent addition to Sarke's catalog.

Again, they've got an awesome combination of opening tracks to grab you, but where the album starts to get real interesting is "Mausoleum". They've used synths plenty through the discography, and always tastefully so, adding more than subtracting, but "Mausoleum" is the first case for me where they feel as if they're really attempting an arrangement. This one feels truly symphonic, the synths scintillating, the guitars and drums working in tandem to support it, and the little wailing melodies create such a stark contrast against NC's voice and the lyrics, which have this sad simplicity and finality to them befitting the title. What a cool track, and something new in the Sarke canon. This isn't entirely representative of the album, but they've got some other experiments here like the sultry acoustics and ambiance of "The Endless Wait" and the Goth-y/sympho step of "In the Flames", which admittedly is a little goofy with the placement of the verse lyrics and such, but in a good way.

Don't worry though, if you want more of the simpler black/thrash with the keys, there are plenty of those tunes here, like "Echoes from the Ancient Crucifix" or "Rebellious Bastard", two more easy highlights for me, and the latter even devolves into an almost Western vibe. I guess Gastwerso would overall win the award for the most 'prog' album in their catalogue to its day, the one most interested in expanded the band's portfolio to avoid the redundancy that might be created by the typical black & white cover images and overall minimalism. But that's not a bad thing, because it's largely fucking awesome; not every left turn here works equally, but overall the satisfaction level is quite high and it's another I often head back to.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (Blocking all the sight)

https://sarkeband.bandcamp.com/

Sarke - Viige Urh (2017)

If I had any reservations or mixed memories of the third or fourth albums, there could be no such confusion with Viige Urh, a record I fell in love with immediately, frontloading some of the catchiest material of the band's entire career. Straight from the opening title track, it brought me right back to what I enjoyed about the debut Vorunah, only performed here with a little more zest and energy. Simple, memorable black/thrash, obviously derived from that Hellhammer school of through, or Darkthrone, NC's main band, but given added breadth and atmosphere due to the tasteful use of synthesizers to make a more dramatic chorus and also help contrast against NC's gritty vocal style, a beauty to the beast.

"Viige Urh" and "Dagger Entombed" are probably the best opening one-two punch combo for me in their whole catalogue, the former for its vital thrashing pulse, and the latter for that amazing flow of grooves and dour-sounding synth tones that almost catapult you back to some Medieval era. But this record has so much more in store for you, like the charging "Age of Sail" with that sweet opening lead guitar, "Upir" with its lopsided, lumbering groove, or the slow-rolling atmospheric doom of "Punishment to Confessions". While there is variety here, I feel that Viige Urh is one of their most unified records in execution; the songs just sort of flow together the best, not that they don't on the older efforts but here they feel more purposely planned for maximum resonance with the listener. Yes, they're pulling in some light prog rock influences among the styles they already dabbled in, but everything else is straight from the Sarke playbook that you'd recognize from the first four.

Viige Urh absolutely stomps, with a more vibrant production than its predecessor and a selection of songs that never let up in quality through the entire playtime. Where, say I could point out a few on Aruagint that wouldn't make a career playlist, I'd probably have to include this entire album. This is the first I grab when introducing someone new to the band, and it has a high rate of success, taking what's so vital about the first two and improving upon that hybrid style. Nocturno's voice is the icing on the cake, but the music itself here is strong enough that I can occasionally put that to the sideline. Amazing stuff that holds up as strongly today as the first time I listened.

Verdict: Win [9.25/10]

https://sarkeband.bandcamp.com/

Sarke - Bogefod (2016)

When I was deciding to complete my reviews for the Sarke discography, a band I've long loved but never openly appreciated enough, I had a false memory that Bogefod was the worst of their albums, and thus it's the one I have the least experience listening to. I think I had it confused with one of the Khold albums or something, or maybe Araguint (which is also good), because it turns out total bullshit, the product of a mind cobwebbed with too much information. Bogefod is great, a record that sticks with its predecessors in style, but benefits from some fresh energy with the addition of the Kråbøl brothers Terje and Stian on the drums and guitar respectively. You might know them from other bands like Tulus, Khold, Gjendod and their namesake Kråbøl, all of whom you probably also enjoy (or would enjoy) if you like Sarke.

Bogefod isn't a far cry from the albums before it, no, but it's a little bit more vicious due to a mix that's a little more saturated, and this applies both to the more incendiary black/thrash material like "Taken" or the mood-setting, slower songs where the synthesizer plays a more dramatic, rainy role as in "Barrow of Torolv". There are great, soothing acoustic segues, a stab at some almost opera-like ethereal fare ("Dawnin") with folk singer Beate Amundsen, and a whole lotta great riffs slathered in Nocturno Culto's not so soothing bark, which to me is like having toast in the morning after listening to 35 years of his music. It balances the Hellhammer/Celtic Frost influences that have always informed this band's style with a few moments of more dissonant black metal, doom, thrash, folk, ambiance and while it's once again not quite the measure of the first two albums, it's very damn close.

In fact, this came out the same year as Arctic Thunder, my least favorite Darkthrone record (although not bad, per se), and I like this one much more. It's a bit more consistently catchy than Aruagint, has the slightly more acidic production and, when it wants to, sounds a little more 'dangerous'. It's things like this that are the reason I'm happy to go back through and cover discographies from bands I think deserve talking about, because occasionally you'll 'rediscover' something that you were either sleeping on, wrong about or just couldn't quite remember, and you'll be the richer for it. Bogefod is, like every Sarke album, worth a listen if not outright ownership, one of the black & roll royalty bands that should appeal if you like any other band I mentioned here in this review, mid-era Satyricon, or Slegest.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (He will not let death contain his madness)

https://sarkeband.bandcamp.com/