Armed with the expected monikers (Azag, Baazigar, Arend, Hecubus), obscure profile, primal guitar tone and a dash of thrash, Exalted certainly deliver a high octane and frenetic display of gritty black/thrash metal, with the emphasis on the black, that thankfully never delves into the beer ‘n’ spikes form of black thrash and keep things squarely in the realm of hate ‘n’ spite fuelled tenacity.

But even with those elements coming into play as well as earthy yet gritty overall production, the end result is still and bit empty and average. The the song writing never delivers anything above a caustic yet mildly thrashy delivery of riffs (“And the Sky Turns Black”, “Conquered Shores”, “LND”) and tremolo laced blasts (“And the Cinders Tell the Tale”, “Morbid Eternity”, “Ride of the Black Horde”, “Tyranny of the Bitch Queen”) that never seem to rise into anything more memorable or attention getting, but rather settling in the realms of gnashingly noisy but forgetful.

Next to US acts like Averse Sefira, the reformed Absu, Exhausted Prayer, Cobalt, Natchmystium, Leviathan and such, as well as their always quality European peers, Exalted seem awfully mediocre and a bit redundant, but I have certainly heard worse (I’m looking at you Ensepulchred…)

Boring, lifeless, forgetful and dreary, lo-fi, mid paced death/black material that makes Obituary’s Back From the Dead and Frozen in Time and the likes of Cianide look like Dragonforce, Birthright is one throwback I can do without and Mr. Nardone must have some serious dirt on Nactmystium’s Azentrius (Battle Kommand’s owner) for this to get the OK.

Rough, shouted vocals increase the retro factor, as does the crusty guitar done-and the utterly dull riffs and pacing. Listen I like retro, I’m going on 35 and as much as I like the modern metal scene, give me something classic from the 90’s any day, but don’t give tracks like “Arrival of Prey”, or the even more primal “Ghost of the Crust Effect”, “Within Woods” and “Bonesaw”-which seem to be tacked on demo tracks, with an even worse guitar tone, lacking the moderate positive of a crusty low end that the previous 6 track have.

Even with Goatlord’s underground legacy, it’s hard to recommend Birthright to anyone other than Jeff Nardone’s immediate family or a musical caveman recently thawed out from 1990 and wants to feel at home. There’s just far better retro , throwback death metal out there to chose from than this.

This is a style I like and I enjoy the songs here but there is really nothing special on display. The sound quality is great, as in appropriate. There are two songs and an acoustic interlude. The acoustic break is very weak. The opening song is nine and one half minutes long and the title is “As A Tale Told by the Leaves and Whispered by the Wind.” We are greeted with even paced rhythmic guitar and unrelenting cymbals. Memorize the first ten seconds and you can play the whole song. The next song, “The Wanderer: Blood in the Forest,” is six and one half minutes long. Still got those ten seconds memorized? Start playing it again here.

Leviathan is complete now. Real drums were used on this album, and a photo of the drums is in the booklet. It is not the best drum sound but it is not a detraction and it is an improvement over the computer. Wrest contributes four songs and an outro. “Odious Convulsions” starts us off in familiar territory with fast drumming, insane vocals, swirling layered guitars, fast and slow pacing, chugging bass, screeching guitar and cool repeating riffs. “The Fourth Blind Wound” offers croaked and screeched vocals and blistering speed on drums with background whispers and a slower disquieting middle passage. I just feel like typing “Crushing The Prolapsed Oviducts of Virtue” so I’ll tell you about the slow and dreary middle section and the howling wail. The outro is called “Mesmerism” and is restrained and brief. Ambient soundscapes are minimal.

If the Leviathan tracks from this release were combined with his tracks from the Xasthur split the result would be a killer full length. I’ve got my cdr in hand. As for Sapthuran, it is time to place an order for To the Edge of Land

Xasthur, on first listen I thought kind of boring and after awhile I looked up at the cd player because the music finally caught my attention and it was track seven, the Katatonia cover song, “Palace of Frost” just starting, sorry Malefic. The Xasthur music is mellow, with a very slow pace with occasionally slightly faster drumming. Any harshness is achieved with distortion and guitar noise and vocals. I would classify myself as not a fan yet I still have ten Xasthur releases, though splits were always because of the other bands, as is the case here. Nocturnal Poisoning started it for me based on the cover art. I’m not sure why I am always willing to give him another chance (besides getting them in the mail to review that is). My favorite release remains the re-recorded corrected version of A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors, Malefic’s early work is what keeps me going, “powerful, grim, hateful and misery induced.” He earned my respect and I can’t start dismissing his music as crap now, that would be letting myself off easy. After a dozen listens, interspersed with other Xasthur discs, I’m enjoying it a lot more. “Keeper of Sharpened Blades” is good, though I still think the drum sound is weak. The vocals are nicely twisted again. Though as usual, his music does not send me spiraling out of control into fits of depression or give me suicidal thoughts, nor does it rile me up in a fit of anger. It is pleasant background music for the drudgery of day-to-day existence. There is a difference between minimalist drumming and simplistic drumming. Leviathan is minimalist, Xasthur simplistic, though it wasn’t always so. Think back to “Cursed be the Memory of Light” for example for a good Philthy Animal Taylor impersonation. The anemic drumming on display on this split is more like Rick Allen. Listening to the Katatonia cover, which goes way back to before they became the Discouraging Ones, is very enjoyable and Malefic does his best to entice me to pull out my disc and listen to the original, something I have not done for more than a decade, but I doubt I will like it as much as this version, well done.

Leviathan, I’ve been a fan since MisanthropicNecroBlasphemy, which I ordered based only on a mail order description so I could make shipping costs more enticing from Europe. Wrest has gone a bit too much ambient for my tastes of late but he is one of the true tortured souls, he is not faking it for a stage gimmick, and it is that authenticity that makes his music enticing. A true fan would have the entire collection, I have 12, what does that make me? Whether he deems me qualified to review or not I consider Wrest one of the top talents in black metal today. He offers two lengthy new songs of ten and a half and eight and a half minutes. Drums have a minimal presence and the pace is slow with plenty of synthesizer music to provide the twists and turns, but this time he never gets totally lost in ambient soundscapes. The vocals are as anguished as always, once again putting the young Varg to shame. The music is not a maelstrom. There is some melody and lots of subtlety, the pace alters frequently and songs flow beautifully. The third song is Judas Iscariot’s “Where the Winter Beats Incessant” from the Distant in Solitary Night disc, as the bonus track and the original ten and a half minute opus is now an extended 12 minute Wrest epic. What is it that inspires Iscariot cover songs? Usually cover songs pale in comparison to the original artist’s vision but bands covering Judas Iscariot go all out, true devotion. No one ever covered an Emperor song with such conviction.

The top three songs on disc are “The Remotest Cipher” “Where The Winter Beats Incessant” and “Unfailing Fall Into Naught.” All three happen to be Leviathan, Sorry Malefic but you had some pretty tough competition on this split. Xasthur has put me back on the fence ready to jump onto the passing bandwagon with an inspired offering that took awhile to get into but was worth the effort. A great release, a great split.