After the subtle piano intro of “Na okraji priepaste otevíra sa hviezdny zámek” Malokarpatan kick into high gear, showing so much love for Mercyful Fate that it could be Denner and Sherman, but it’s not just that and in no way are they doing it as parody; Malokarpatan are deadly fucking serious about their Blackened NWOBHM and instead of making a sterile clone, they have created a fun album that might inspire a St. Vitus whirlwind of dancing.

That’s what you get with this album: possession. It possesses your mind; “Kočár postupuje temnomodrými dálavami na juhozápad” and “Vertumnus Caesar” are beastly tracks, the former being a hefty Mercyful Fate-influenced track and the latter being a bastard child of Beherit and Masters Hammer, which doesn’t stop there it keeps going in the best possible way in “Vovnútri chlácholivého útočišta kunstkamru” before the band gets all cosmic and the album gets its first true polka beat in the psychedelia of instrumental “Panstvo salamandrov jest v kavernách zeme” which reminds me of “Genesis” from Ghost’s Opus Eponymous. It has that soaring emotional hook that Malokarpatan nails perfectly, all the while injecting the song with a traditional influence that takes it beyond a new level.

I have so much love for this album, it’s got some truly epic passages within it’s Gothic stone walls, Iron Maiden cavorts in the shadows with the epic closer “I hle, tak zachádza imperiálna hviezda” this 10 minute galloping track that’s just holy shit bonkers.

In a year that has, quite frankly been a huge win for Slovakia, Finland, and of course Norway, can’t forget Norway… the grandeur that is Vertumnus Caesar must be experienced as a whole volume to itself, Malokarpatan are a band I’ll be checking out their discography fairly soon. I urge you, constant reader to do the same and while you’re at it pick up Vertumnus Caesar, you will not be disappointed.

The unsettling guitar tone and vocals have been upped and the ambiance has been reduced somewhat, so new Teitanblood is much more direct in their vitriol. Rather than tendrils of black ickor and throbbing ritualistic throes, Death is more content to flay you alive and dip you in acid. And while there are expected chants or occult strains here or there they are much more subtle and interwoven with the churning miasma of filth as opposed to lengthy or drawn out segues of ambiance, with the exception of the vast “Silence of the Great Martyrs”, which  is about half satanic atmospherics.

The end result is often a overwhelming, relentless album that will leave you ragged. Opener, the simply blistering “Anteinferno” is utterly relentless for 5 minutes before “Sleeping Throats of the Antichrist” , the albums second monster track at 12 and a half minutes rumbles with more sickly mid pace and almost memorable riffage and when teamed with the following track the 9 minute salvo “Plagues of Forgiveness”  and unsettling screech of 11 minute “Cadaver Synod”  it’s just a 30 minute sonic nightmare that’s pretty unrelenting.

https://soundcloud.com/user3105090/teitanblood-anteinfierno-1

Thankfully, “Unearthed Veins” is the album’s shortest cut where you get some reprieve  with a slower, almost instrumental murky march. Buts merely a short bump before “Burning in Damnation’s Fires” returns back to the calamitous filth but also manages to inject arguably the albums most restrained hues about halfway in with a scrawling, doomy march that could be an Autopsy track.

The closing 16 minute “Silence of the Great Martyrs”, the albums arguable centerpiece crackles and burns with insidious malevolence before exploding in a torrent of filthy,blasting discordance and distant growls. The as I mentioned earlier, the last half of the track is the albums sole extended foray into atmospherics and its a damn creepy one with chants throbbing occult throes, that close the album out with ritualistic flair.

Death isn’t  just songs or riffs, but palpably nefarious and menacing sound tracks to esoteric necromancy rituals and vile communions with the Devil, and Teitanblood is the conduit.

Nuss and company take a more liturgical approach on Ye Are Gods, incorporating more of the ritual elements of the Process, as well as bringing in former member Timothy Wyllie (aka Father Micah) to deliver a spoken word exhortation. The album is less a rock record than a soundtrack to the Process ritual. The first half is a rather solemn affair dominated by acoustic guitar, keyboards, organ, and viola. Jamie Myers (ex-Hammers of Misfortune) does an excellent job taking over for Jess Thoth, displaying great emotive range as her crystalline voice soars over “We Come From the One”, “Let Us Give Praise and Validation”, and “Bless Our Lord and Master”. “We Give Our Lives” returns from the first album, this time in a darker, unplugged form with vocals performed by Genesis P. Orridge of Psychic TV fame.

The jangling rock of the first record doesn’t emerge until the fifth track “Exit, with the band going into full blown revivalist gospel mode, replete with backing chorus and organ. This is the meat for fans of the first record with “Exit”, “Christ You Bring the End”, and “And the Clarion Calls” nailing the psych-pop joy and cultic lyrical darkness that made Restored to One such an infectious bastard of an album. It is for this reason that perhaps Ye Are Gods isn’t as successful an album as Restored to One. It’s not as catchy, not as direct musically. The spoken word elements make the pseudo-religious inspiration more apparent and altogether less mysterious. The intent and structure is clearly different though and Ye Are Gods is an often beautiful album that takes a more orthodox religious approach to the lyrical concepts and theology.

Ye Are Gods won’t be replacing Restored to One as my go-to Sunday morning breakfast music, but it’s a fine album that oozes atmosphere and manages to wind itself into your brain after a couple of listens. The progression of the songs, the spoken word passages, and the strange darkness of the lyrics stamp a unique personality and atmosphere on it that is undeniable. It’s both a great record and, given the recent revival of interest in the Process Church, an indispensable work of creative anthropology for anyone interested in this long forgotten movement.

Improved on every facet (including the production) from a debut that I was rather lukewarm on, From the Devil’s Tomb, is the same hues of ritualistic black/thrash metal akin to Celtic Frost and Absu mixed with some Greek esoterica, played with Watain’s conviction and sneaky melodies. However, everything has an arcane savagery and mysterious occult sheen, which when paired with much better and memorable riffs make for an intoxicatedly surreal, yet menacing album.

It’s obvious from opening title track main man Vetis Monarch has sharpened all aspects of Weapon‘s sound. The guitars have more bite, and while riff are steeped in a nasty black thrash essence, they tangibly lean much further into death metal structures, as does Vetis’s vocals. The occult/ ritualistic elements seem much more natural, organic and harrowing than the debut and the end result is a swirling metallic churning beast that comes across as the unholy alliance of Deathspell Omega and Incantation (“Trishul” and standouts “The Inner Wolf” and otherwise seething “Sardonyx” being particularly effective). The artwork sums the sound up perfectly

As with the debut and most music of this nature, From the Devil’s Tomb isn’t about single songs or moments but rather a single 54-minute, nerve wracking entity. That being said, striking instrumental “Lefthandpathyoga” breaks up the furor of the album with some surprising moments of melody and introspection. Surrounding those two tracks though are plenty of atonal vortexes such as the aptly named duo of “Furor Divinus” and “Vortex 11744” which all rumble and spew with a artistic vehemence, like a demonic spirit being violently exorcised from a innocent childish human shell.

With “Towards the Uncreation” closing the album in perfect style, I think Weapon has entered the cusp of elitism for this new millennia of genre defying metal. And it only took them two releases to do it!

So here I sit, late at night, in my dark basement, listening to this Colorado band’s second full length album ― every tap on the glass, wisp of wind and creak of floorboard bringing me closer to insanity and despair. As the words fill the screen and the throes of malice tighten around my throat, Nightbringer’s piercing, discordant blackened mysticism feeds the blackness that’s engulfing me…must finish review…

While much of the modern US black metal movement seems content to be more laid back, ambient experimental and avant-garde, Nightbringer take a page from fellow US black metalers Averse Sefira with a more brittle, chaotic and menacing approach that’s fitting of sun destroying rituals by way of hypnotically violent riffs, backwards, transcendental structures and a dark, occult theme.

Running for almost 70-minutes and comprising of mostly lengthy songs, Apocalypse Sun, isn’t about songs or specific riffs, but a complete event of dense, churning, dissonance that plays blends together and sounds like 3-4 different albums spinning at once. From opener “I Am I”, through “Supplication Before the Throne of Tehom” and slow burns that litter the 9-minute “Serpent of the Midnight Sun”, shrill, sickly crawl of “Excitium: Litany of the Devouring Earth” to lurching 10-minute closer “Fount of the Nighted God-Head”, the album, twists and slices with an organized chaos and vitriolic sneer. Occasional moments of malevolent ambience interject here and there within the songs (chants, synths, creepy acoustics), but for the most part the album careens and spirals with dizzying menace and caustic, evil complexity (i.e “Goblet of Sulphur and Poison”, “Nephal-The Seat of Pan-Daimonium”).

Alas, the shadows are closing in on me, I don’t have much time left…I can smell the sulphur and feel the tendrils of nausea creep up my spine, delivering unspeakable evil to my already weakened mind…I can only finish with this last note….and hope to hold the dark spirits at bay with unabashed worship…

Apocalypse Sun is certainly as good as Krallice’s debut and definitely a nice stop gap until the new Deathspell Omega erupts from the bowls of hell. It also has to rank as one of the more important and impressive USBM releases of the last few years that isn’t rooted in hipsters, hippies or hemp.

…take me now….

Plying a cryptic style of thrashy, occult black metal, Weapon is certainly relatively old school with lots of NWOBH moments (early Celtic Frost and Absu comes to mind), and rough but crisp production, but there’s also an undercurrent of early esoteric Greek metal running through their veins ( Rotting Christ, Septic Flesh). The end mix while certainly a mysterious, ritualistic amalgamation of metal, just leaves me a tad cold.

The opening instrumental track, “Weapon” is bit of a head scratcher, as it could be a pure retro thrash number that’s so popular right now. However, the second track “Cacophony! Black Sun Dragon’s Tongue” and third track “Serpentine Ayat” reveal Weapon’s slithering combination of steady, blackened occult structures, complete with chants and a touch of atmospherics. Rowdy drums dominate the mix with gravely guitars and vocals, and scrawling solos, but what keeps the music interesting is the wide array of styles that Weapon mix, yet still come away as cohesive and esoteric. Be it the direct, raucous black thrash of “Moretm Pyre (In Darkness & Blood)” the more blistering yet labyrinthine, menacing throes of “Archana”, the slow developing mood and acoustics of “Drakonian Paradigm: The Flame Of All”, Weapon certainly knows how to create a record of multiple vaguely creepy, elements, even injecting some Middle Eastern mystique into closer “Remnants Of A Burnt Mosque”.

That all being said, there’s nothing on Draconian Paradigm that’s truly unnerving or unsettling as I think the band would like. Despite their imagery and themes, the thrash dominates the music more than the black metal, So there’s less Ayat, Dagon or Teitanblood nastiness and ickiness which I think the band wants, and much more of a thrash revival with some occult elements.

Still, a pretty solid record and a band definitely worth keeping an eye, as if they can inject some of their imagery and lyrics into their music, they could come up with something pretty special.

As Good as I thought Kenose was, Fas, is just on a whole new level of serpentine, disturbing and transcendental, shimmering black malevolence and brilliance. After the intro “Obombration” (which serves as the title of the outro also), the opening track alone “The Shrine of Mad Laughter” (arguably one of the most amazing songs of the year), bursts forth from the speakers like 10 different black metal albums playing at once, while a hornets nest spews forth its angry contents. It is truly ‘order from chaos’ with its violent almost indecipherable cacophony, but yet undulating, tangibly menacing and on some perverse level, sickening precise. And that’s before the songs mid point descent into ambient psychosis, tortured angelic cries and nerve wrecking few moments of closing silence. It’s this mix of rabid black metal furor and the well utilized, often paralyzing ambient segues that make Fas stick with you deep into your psyche. Sure, many black metal bands mix up ambience and antagonism, (Blud Aus Nord, Negura Bunget, Shining, Xasthur, etc) but Deathspell Omega have the art down pat, mixing the sheer violence of say Antaeus with the suicidal, horror filled ambience of Leviathan.

“Bread of Bitterness” follows suite but adds a layer of demented orchestration and chanting to the mix and again with the tension inducing silence to close the track as you brace for the onslaught. Instead, you are greeted with the lurching, atonal lope of “The Repellent Scars of Abandon And Election” that starts as if it could be the blues or jazz as if it were played in a backstreet bar of some alternate hell before erupting with the foul gusts of chaotic seething grandeur personified. The dreamy start to “A Chore For The Lost” is rudely (and sleep shatteringly) interrupted by an explosion of oppressive disharmony and swirling vortex while vocalist with Mikko Aspa unleashes his most poisonous and varied effort on the album.

Ultimately Fas-Ite, Malidicti In Ignem Aeternum is uncompromisingly vitriolic yet sublimely structured with misanthropic layering and depth. It results in what looks to be the black metal album, with possibly the exception of the new Leviathan swansong, that all other black metal albums of 2007 will be judged against and they will fail miserably.

Two piece Mortuus consists of M. Hinze from Ondskapt (drums) and Tehôm from the defunct Dödfödd (vocals, guitar, bass), but even with that line-up the duo can only muster a fairly standard scrawling, dreary, slightly doomy, depressive slab of drawn out black metal.

Admittedly, this isn’t a bad album per say, but it’s not as evocative, claustrophobic or paranoia inducing as its peers. Long songs, layered pained screams and chants (“The Illumination of Job”), droning riffs (“Penetrations of Darkness”) and plenty of lengthy atmospheric/creepy segues (“Supplication of the Demise”) littered with a few blasts of traditional blackened fury (“Astral Pandemonium”)-it’s all here by the numbers, but none of it ever comes close to the likes of Draugar, Leviathan, Shining or Azrael-all seeming reference points.

The production is above average, meaning that it’s listenable to these ears but may be too clean for some of the genre’s purists giving it another strike against it. Though the one man/two man black metal seems to be vogue now, I wonder how long the genre can continue being as viable as it was just a few years ago.

To these ears and more importantly to my psyche, SOTM have that rare ability to imbue certain emotions with their sneering, slithering, yet robust take on black metal and its many sub genres that SOTM manage to include in their sound. Sharing the nervous, paranoid feel of some of the US’s one man bands, yet mixes in progressive death metal elements (that sort of reminded me of classic Celtic Frost), some Scandinavian extremity (Enochian Crescent comes to mind), and a stout production, Antithesisis an absorbing, innovative and disturbing listen.

No where is this more predominant on the serpentine “Confessions” which has a Morbid Angel-ish crawl and neck hair raising chord progression, and the Morbid Angel vibe arises for the lurching “Metamorphoses” and “Ghost”, two more majestically lumbering tracks that show SOTM refuse to be painted into a tremolo picked staccato black metal pigeonhole. “Versus” is a more standard track that mixes death metal percussive plod and blackened vigor and “Ordinance” and “Seraphim Is Dead” are arguably the albums most ‘black’ metal sounding even with their various tangents and experimental elements which are fully embedded in the nearly nine minute, dread inducing closer “Lucifer Speaks”.

With the exception of the introductory “Nowhere (11:18 )” and outro “Exit”, the tracks are long, developed and tangibly evil without relying on screams, squeals or black metal gimmicks; just twisted, contorted riffage and sublime song writing.

Great black metal for people like me that don’t like the black metal typical fare