Well, if you check their myspace, there shows at the genres, that there would be also a Christian influence, but that is as the covers, lyrics and either the video just a joke and at the end the opposite. When you then take a look to the influences, then you can be sure, that this has nothing to do with white metal. Marduk, Sex Feet Under are just two of death/black metal gods. And you can hear them, but still this band has an unique style to play death metal. The riffs are fast and chopped. With the growls and the blasting drums it is a fast and aggressive music. Everybody who likes those bands, named above can crap this without fear. But you can just get the full sense of this music, when you are able to understand Spanish, because all lyrics are written in that language. Just one shitty point is here, that the MCD is quite short, just 6 minutes, but they released since that MCD one single and a full length this year. So if you want more, you can have it!
Band: OCULUS INFERNUM
Country: Italy
Title: The Hand of Satan
Label: Self-released
Year: 2009
Style: Old-school Black Metal
Review:
Oculus Infernum is the new band featuring Gonark {Atrocious Depression, R.I.P} on vocals, guitar, drum programming and Lamia {guitars, lyrics} The Hand of Satan starts off with a somber almost peacful sounding intro but the duo quickly change that with the blazing thin, raw guitar riffs and gonarks demonic screams overlap the insanity of the guitars and drums being brought out. The duo do keep some traces and influences of melody within their violent sound as they have some acoustic and more mid-paced guitar patterns. Gonark also changes his vocals around in a few songs using clean vocal chants and screams on a few tracks. This is a defintly good release of old-school black metal with touches of doom, nothing too original but the duo do a great job of creating memorable and intense old-school black metal.
Reviewed by Patrick
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Band: ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS
Country: Belarus
Title : "Dysphory (part one)”
Label: Rigorism Prod. / Cyberborea Records
Year: 2009
Style: Depressive Black Metal / Experimental Post-Rock
With this new opus "Dysphory Part-One", once again, Ordo Templi Orientis show us the extent of their talent! Indeed, they give us here a concrete example of what they call "the ecclectic black metal art". There is no better term, I think, to define their sound! We find in their music, basically a very depressive black metal, but also touches of post-rock, not to mention all these passages to various influences such as the Gothic of the 80s and 90s, and obviously a very big part of ambient, the bottom layer, using transitional link between all these contributions!
Again, listening to this album, my surprise was not so at their own because it is now very recognizable, but rather on their ability to constantly renew itself, without falling, in a translitin imitation of themselves!
The album begins with a mournful sample, which is straight into the mindset of this training! Then under the "hysteria", very good as suicidal black metal is then in the following titles found their originality, with some passages, not unlike a type-o negative great day! The 7 tracks on this album clearly express the theme of the album, namely madness throughout his expression! I strongly recommend "Dysphory-Part One"! It will immerse fans of suicidal black metal in the torments of the soul tormented by despair and melancholy.
Reviewed by Alrinack
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Band: PARSIFALL
Country: Germany
Title: Hercules Furens
Label: Noisehead Records
Year: 2009
Style: Modern Thrash Death
Review:
It’s an unusual album that reverses your opinion as you listen, but Parsifall’s ‘Hercules Furens’ is just one such. The problem, unfortunately, is that the direction of reversal is not towards the positive. ‘Hercules Furens’ managed to annoy me increasingly the further I listened, and by the time the final track ‘Perelandra’ faded out I just wanted to press delete. Let me explain myself… From the outset it’s clear that Parsifall know what they’re doing and there’s an obvious technical proficiency that promises much, but as one moves through the album the music starts to become a backing track for the vocalist rather than a cohesive whole, becoming progressively more dull as each track unfolds.
Musically, there are very clear influences from the band Disbelief, and maybe for me that is the nub of the problem. While Disbelief manage to wrench emotion from even the most flinty hearted of listeners, Parsifall left me with the feeling of metal by numbers – Disbelief does hardcore, if you will. The ‘hardcore/metal with a social conscience’ crossover is a wonderfully fertile well from which to draw, but to my ear Parsifall sound like an ‘also ran’, with the distinct impression that their message has been pressed into a pre-existing form. ‘Hercules Furens’ feels much more like a product of marketing than desire, and I was left with the distinct and slightly cynical impression of ‘clean dirt’…
‘Hercules Furens’ is not without its charms – track one starts in a very fine way, and the quality of the musicianship (the drummer is as tight as a proverbial, well, drum) throughout is top notch, but by the time you get less than a third of the way through the album - and particularly to the spoken word parts of track 6 - it becomes aparent that the ideas are somewhat on the thin side. These are good musicians, but the overall impression is of a band pushed towards making an album too quickly. A definite case of style over substance.
Reviewed by M.
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Band: PESTILENT GRAVE
Country: England
Title: Esoteric Blaspheme
Label: Svartgalgh Records
Year: 2009
Style: Raw Black Metal
Review:
If you enjoy your black metal raw, dirty and with no signs of melody or modern influence in their sound you will love Pestilent Grave! England's Pestilent Grave start things off with a harsh scream and raw guitar chords. The band defintly draws it's main influence and sound from the more violent/harsh gods of the early ninety's such as Blasphemy, Beherit.
Production wise think early Dark Throne but Vith {all vocals, instruments} doesn't completly rip-off the above bands sound instead taking them to a newer more raw level with his own dark and blasphemous musical ideas. Fans of raw, dirty straightforward black metal will defintly want to check out Pestilent Grave.
Reviewed by Patrick
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Band: PYRIFLEYETHON / IMPERIAL DARKNESS
Country: Greece / Greece
Title: Havoc's Split Asunder
Label: Selfreleased
Year: 2009
Style: Black Metal / Black Metal
Review:
This is a 7" split between two old-school Black Metal acts from Greece. The split comes in nice B/W package with a sheet of paper containing all necessary info and in Pyrifleyethon's case, the lyrics. It's limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.
The first band is Pyrifleyethon, a five pieces old-school raw Black Metal act formed back in 2001. Before this split their Discography contains only other release, a demo from 2003. On this one, they present only 1 track, "Rot Trembling Scaffold" that would be enough only for those that already had a good idea on this band's music, but not for me. Anyway, the tracks starts with pure furry and in a primitive, fast fashion. I guess they have not mastered the track at all because it sounds like recorded once and that's it, placed on the vynil. the guitars sound a bit confusing this way. To be honest I like it because of the vynil sound, it has that special feeling.
The other side of this disc belongs to Imperial Darkness, a trio formed back in 2000, including a member of Pyrifleyethon, the bassist Gilles de Rais who takes care of bass & guitar here. Before this split they have released 2 demos in 2001 and 2008. About their side on Havoc's Split Asunder, I can only say I like it better, it's more varied, more devilish and longer as they present 2 tracks here. Nosoforos, the first one is really, really good old-school fast and dark black metal with catchy guitars lines and vicious, raw vocals that fit in perfectly. Nekyomantia is the second track, a totally different one, here they try to be faster than possible and that's a mistake, the drummer, although blasting like a possessed, is overwhelmed by all this intensity. So I stick with the first track and hope the guys will keep on the same path.
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: REVELATIONS OF RAIN
Country: Russia
Title: Revelations of Rain
Label: Solitude Productions
Year: 2009
Style: Funeral Doom Death
Review:
Well it seems like in the Funeral Death Doom world you have bands like My Dying Bride Swallow The Sun, Mourning Beloveth and you have a million other bands that sound like those bands. Revelations Of Rain are no exception, it is pretty much every cliche of Doom/Death that is possible to imagine; slow riffs, plodding drums, dry growled vocals, and extended moody melodic ideas expressed largely through keyboards. While I thought their first album "Marble Shades Of Despair" was actually pretty good, this album has left me a bit cold. It maybe one of the most generic, middle of the road Doom Metal albums I have ever heard. There is one track where they seem to break with the formula (Winter Grief), where they pick up the pace a little. At least it sounds a little fresh and interesting, the rest of the album they just plod along and the truth is its just so predictable even for Doom Metal. They do try and create the dark brooding atmosphere but most of the time, the riffs and arrangements are just too pedestrian for words. On "I Left Myself Here" and "Empire Of White Light" there is flashes of brilliance but like too often on the album the songs just go nowhere. Its like watching a movie with some great scenes but a terrible story-line, you might sit through just for the good moments but it takes some patience to sit through the whole thing. They even seem to re-create the same melody lines in some songs or at least real close to the same but there is some good points to be made about the album. The mix is crystal clear and the guitar sounds real heavy, yet the album never feels overproduced. While the songs seem like simple compositions on the surface, dig a little deeper you will hear some cool intricacy especially in the bass playing. This is a bit of a let-down after their first album which I thought showed some real promise and potential, on this album however they seem to be struggling for ideas even though they are obliviously good musicians. Maybe the next album will see a return to form but for now this is a real unremarkable effort.
Reviewed by Ed
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