Czarnobog - Forn anda náttúrunnar

Here we have a Russian one man band (but lives now in Germany) that has been active since and around 2012 and with a string of releases this is his fourth full album (from 2015).

As the bands genre description Atmospheric/Pagan Black Metal suggests one gets what one assumes and that in spades! It plays for 2 damn hours!!  You get your money worth here hehe

Ok first thing that hit me was the great wall-of-atmospheric-noise which sounds very nice and is one of the strongest sell points for this double album also, the sound puts you in the right mood and time setting with all of its crow kraxing, winds in the woods blowing and distant battles.The atmosphere is top notch.

The actual music is quite raw (but in the grand reverbing production) and semi melodic in the Pagan/ black metal path and its thundering right at you with power and hate! Great piercing vocals i must add.
 I would have been perfectly happy with Mûrazôrs music compositions if this was say an demo or Ep with 4-5 songs as they are pretty repetitive (not many riff variations or melodies inside each track) and each song is quite long also (between 7-12 minutes is common) so it gets a bit evenly thick listening to 8 songs not to mention 14 tracks! (the instrumental parts helps some here though) As it is now i feel his creations works the best in shorter releases but that can change of course....and i have not heard his older albums either so i dont know how it all worked there...

... I feel my emotional side and my analyzing side is conflicting a bit here as the music feels and sounds great but after awhile into the release my objective thinking comes in and fucks with me and the music hehe.

Either way Czarnobog delivers a strong but primitive black metal with a Pagan heart and even if it would become better with some more meat inside the songs this is something i recommend. But listen  little here and little there perhaps for best enjoyment.

I am looking forward also to the Czarnobog demo  "Wrath of the Winter Spirits" (MC)
Released on Narbentage Produktionen to 66 Copies.
Curious to see how his musicianship has evolved...

Track list:

Disc 1
1.     Die Nacht erwacht     04:17       instrumental
2.     Sigurður Fáfnisbani     08:56    
3.     Magna Germania     07:31    
4.     Von der Sehnsucht nach der uralten Zeit     09:12    
5.     Germanischer Hexenwinter     08:31    
6.     Nordmann     11:35    
7.     Im Nebelwald     09:34    
8.     Götterdämmerung     10:13
   
      Total:01:09:49    
Disc 2
1.     Af svörtu töfra af galdramaður     12:34       Show lyrics
2.     Im Wahnsinn der Nostalgie     09:56    
3.     Spádómur af þeim nornir     07:15    
4.     Pagan Black Metal Storm     05:24    
5.     Forn anda náttúrunnar     10:12    
6.     Tränen der Walküre     06:52       instrumental

      Total:52:13    

Released Caligo Arcanum Productions
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/CaligoArcanum/

Band link:
https://www.facebook.com/Czarnobog-279659695509950/?fref=nf

Pestilent Death - Eulogies of Putrefaction

Here is some corpse rumbling death metal from the States!

This band trio has released some self released demos and eps since 2012 but this is their first full album!

I felt it was time to listen to some death metal after a time with much black metal, i dipped my toes in the death filled pus pool in the search for a new beast and i found Pestilent Death´s  Eulogies of Putrefaction.

First it was a bit of an adjustment time for me (thanks to all black metal) to embrace this basket case but after some spins my brain clicked into THAT place and from there it was a infecting joy ride to listen to it.

For lack of better comparison fans of Incantation will most probably lap this up, so yes PD´s sound is of a very shuddering and chunky horror death metal and every song is well made in all departments...of course this is no album sounding "fresh" or "evolved" but it is not the intention either but having said that this is not a sloppy ,muddy or primitive band either, The members knows very much what they doing.
Songs is filled with both deadly blasts (both groovy and hostile) and also some great bleak doom parts.

I especially enjoy the guitar and bass sound, how their sound fuse together into a menacing fat and crunchy sound (good texture), but drums are just as good and the vocals are very dark growling almost talkative sometimes...one could almost hear the lyrics hehe.

I was a bit reserved first before hearing anything when i saw them label their music as Brutal Death Metal as many of vocalist in that fields just sound ridiculous!
  Like spanked squealing pigs, dont like that and reminds me always of THAT scene in Deliverance.
So i was glad this vocalist was more in the vein of some mutated brown bear going about!

Production is clear but powerful, nothing to complain about. Good shit all around here

Recommended new death metal in the undead bloody old school way.

Best 3 songs is: 4,5,6

Track list:

1.     Prologue     01:18    
2.     Cemeterial Befoulment     04:07      
3.     Unearthly Immolations     02:57      
4.     Chainsaw Debauchery     04:17      
5.     Premonitions of Misery     07:00    
6.     The Lament Configuration     05:51    
7.     Necrocannibal (Mortician cover)     03:58    
                                  Total:29:28

Band page:
https://www.facebook.com/Pestilent-Death-240170766024301/?fref=ts

Label:
Self release

NEKRARCHON - Gehinnam

Here is a dark shimmering diamond shard from Athens Greece!
The debut album Gehinnam from NEKRARCHON!

                                                                This albums concept is:

"Gehinnam was a valley where people sacrificed their children.

A cursed place for the wicked. A lake of fire.

An angel denies his master and commits a massacre.

Then repented falls in the shades of Gehinnam to suicide.

Because of an angel's presence the Archon awakes.

They merged and through an orison to darkness they become Nekrarchon.

The new dark Lord baptizes his disciples,raises them and lets them bear his emblem.

He prays to take the chrism from the utter God and makes eucharist with sacrificed gods.

                          Finally he orders his Kings to obey and march to spread eternal darkness."


...and it is just fair to say that they manage well to induce the expectations one gets from reading that...

A both clear and foggy soundscape is rolling over you and with it  warning signals of horror and pain is to be heard & felt, it is both somewhat a void like meditative state one falls into but also it never forgets to be hard hitting in the music department.
Sharp & sorrowful shimmering is emitting from the guitars but that can be said about the overall tone of this record really.
Vocals rumbles nicely in mid-dark dry growling and melds well with the rest, the drumming is
is tight and diverse with both some sweet intricate patters as well as some nice blastings.
The production/mixing is just right balanced so both the dissonant vibrations can rule without drowning the other instrumental dynamics.

Quite a suffocating feeling going through it from start to finish...but that is probably their intentions.
A dark twisting and shuddering  experience from the first song to the last tenth one.


A solid & well thought out debut album which rises the expectations quite some for their next release.

Listen loud in total darkness for best effect! ...well that applies to all Black Metal.

I think fans of newer hetroertzen & One Master will like this besides the random black metal zombie like me hehe

*And if you have not already read their interview just scroll down a bit here for it.

Label site link:
http://www.fda-rekotz.com/

Band FB page:
 https://www.facebook.com/nekrarchon/?fref=ts

Atra Vetosus - Ius Vitae Necisque

First time i hear this band from Australia, before this Ep starting from 2011 they released one demo, one single and one full album.

Ok first off i got to say that i have often a problem enjoying  many post BM (that includes to much from the "-core" related vocals or rhythms), to upbeat melodic or heavily keyboard orientated symphonic BM & much of the DSBM...

That said this band (at least on this Ep) has mixed quite freely with much of the stuff i dont often like....so i should hate this...but i dont really.

The actual music is very well handled with a nice and powerful balance between soaring and crushing parts, the musicians knows what they doing and they bring forth one grand well layered & solid 22 minutes song, the title of it i think means in Latin: Power of life and death... for extra atmosphere they use piano parts and starts of with classic "winds in the forest" sounds .(and also somewhere in the middle and ends with that as it all comes in full circle.) Besides the borrowing of  BM soundscapes one can also find traces of heavy metal and some pagan roots.

As taste is subjective i must say the vocals was not bad but too whiny and to much "crying hardcore" sounding for my stomach but worst i think is the lyrics...it is so upbeat forest hippy that i might found "deep" when i was in my early teens but not now no...yeah i am an old bitter Strigoi i know.
I wonder why the band like to label itself as Black Metal when it has really nothing to do with  Black Metal, its just not enough to sing about the forest and life and death and have some BM looking band logo... invent some new band genre instead, cant hurt.

Anyways if you are a person whom like different types of blackened post/core-metal then this is not half bad.

Released by
Immortal Frost Productions
Mail:
Immortalfrostproductions@hotmail.com
FB-page:
https://www.facebook.com/Immortalfrostproductions/?fref=ts

Band FB-page:
https://www.facebook.com/atravetosus/?fref=ts

NEKRARCHON Interview!

"NEKRARCHON formed in 2014 at Athens, Greece and raised as a concept band.
Band’s sound references related with extreme, dark views of black art."


1. Greetings! 
Thanks for taking time off for this little interrogation! First i like to congratulate you on the debut album release! You started activities sometime in 2014, how has the time been working on this first record?

-Hello. Thanks a lot.
We started working this record from the first moment and after two years we feel that is completed to all its aspects. During these years we were working on both the audio and the conceptual part of the album and on the idea to combine them in harmony. It was a creative period in which everything worked as it should.

2. As the concept you focus on here exists in Jewish Rabbinic literature, and Christian and Islamic scripture i get a feeling that your main direction is in the Jewish hell, for what reasons did you take this road?

-The concept of the album is metaphoric. Our real road has to do with topics like introversion, nihilism, skepticism & trancendentalism. The references to Christian & Jewish scriptures were made to emphasize what mankind can do in the name of religion and that you only have to believe in your inner truth.

3. About the album title. i read your theme description "Gehinnam was a valley where people sacrificed their children. A cursed place for the wicked. A lake of fire."...and bits of my old brain highlighted some bits and pieces of information conserning this so i did an updated research and this is my questions: 

   A. is GEHINNAM the same as Gehenna, from the Hebrew Gehinnom, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom?

-Like a definition is the same but for us “Gehinnam” has a deeper meaning and represents the obscure side that everyone has.
  
B. And from what i understand this place name comes from around the Ahaz time and place where they sacrificed children to Moloch? What is your understanding of the use of Moloch sacrifice and its form? 

-The sacrifice was made placing the child on the extended hands of the burning statue of Moloch while the noise of drums or whatever covered the screams.

 The concept was not made to transfer the scripts. It's a tale to show the rottenness of beings when they are directed from movements like religions. They can even sacrifice their own children in order to please the deity.

4. This concept i see also as a mad metaphor that can be applicated to certain ways/path in life when a person that defies god/your boss/ parents etc and go your own way...and that leads to darkness (not that i agree with that!) and evil spirited possessions... feels like some old way of put fright in the peasants of what can happen if you are not pure and turned to the gods light... if there ever existed something like that. what is your personal stand on why this story or whatever it should be called did come into existence?
-Well, it sure is a metaphor that can be applied in life, but this is your own view and meaning. We want every listener to create a personal opinion about the concept, depending on the perception that one has. For us, darkness is a very misunderstood concept. The public opinion has been directed to believe that there is darkness and light, evil and good and all that meaningless stuff. It's a made up truth served beautifully in order to breed servants. For us you have to see beneath the words and understand that everyone has his own “darkness” and the point is to explore and evolve it. ”Gehinnam” is inside us and its story exist in every moment of our lives.

5. Great that you got snapped up by FDA REKOTZ to a first release, how did you come in contact and will there be a 12" & tape besides the cd?
-We had heard about the label and sent them our work. From the beginning we had a great contact and cooperation and we respect them for that. The album will be released also in 12’’ lp format at 1st of July.

6. Is there live gig plans for Nekrarchon? If so when and where?

-At this time, we are working on the transportation of the album into a live spectacle. We want to create an atmospheric scene on stage which will be more than just a music performance. So very soon there will be news on that part.

7. Now after this release is there some brewing plans for other future releases?

-It is too early to talk about our next work. At this point we want to give all our energy into “Gehinnam”.

8. The end is here. Last words is yours.

-Let the darkness rise from the depths of the inner mentality.



...Review of the album will be posted here soon also.



Band link:
https://www.facebook.com/nekrarchon/?fref=ts

Iter Pactum - Demonic Rites

This Norwegian one man band has under very little time coughed up both quite a lot of quality satanic verses and respect...from officially creeping up on the "scene" in and around 2014 he has delivered (before this one) 3 full albums, 4 Ep´s, 2 demos, one single and two splits... good work there i say and from the other material i heard it is not one of those bands that poop out a hell of a lot of releases that is just a bunch shitty hammering and/or noising and ambienting around (sure there a  good ambient/noise bands) just fot the sake of releasing....no here i feel there is a strong force and a focused satanic mind at work.

The sound here is quite harsh and raw mid-tempo and stamps off in the muddy waters from early 90´s but he dont steal (so much) and rape his ground fathers sound (not sounding so Norwegian really) instead he attacks with an album that stands really well on its own three legs.

A major sinking feeling i get listening through song after song as the album is dragging you down the cold swamp slowly but firmly... suddenly you just feeling bad haha and that is a good thing here!

The spells are working and each song is a bit trance inducing but also quite evil and smokey...
Witchy Vocals and cold semi melodic guitar is the strongest points here besides the overall choking foggy ambience.

A convincing and good release that the underground dogs should lap up now!

Best tracks for me is: 1,4,5

Track list:

1.     Over aser og gjennom kulde     05:51    
2.     Der hvor intet lever     05:22    
3.     Når natten stiger frem     05:46    
4.     Moonlight Ritual     06:19    
5.     Demonic Rites     05:13    
6.     Det siste åndedrag     05:55    
7.     Avskjed     05:57    
                       Total: 40:23