Band: BLACKSTREAM
Country: Italy
Title: Digital Perversion
Label: Independent
Year: 2020
Style: Industrial Noise Black Metal

Review:
With 15 years of activity underbelt and 2 full-length album released, Blackstream is by no means a newcomer, but it might well be an exotic name for Black Metal fans because all their releases are very limited, and this demo confirms that, it's out in 66 hand-numbered cassette tapes. The music this Italian duo proposes is also very exclusivist to say the least, a brutal, oppressive, chaotic, visceral mix of Black Metal, Industrial and Noise, basically imagine the most brutal combo of these genres and you'll have a rough picture, and on top of that add an extremely eerie, apocalyptic sounding ambient mix of church chants, sword battles, beast grunts and growls, that in my opinion are the salt and pepper of this demo, very well done, horrifying, somber, totally expressive. The production is raw demo quality, if you're not used to such unpolished sounds you will certainly taken by surprise, but still I can sense a certain care for the listener as this whole weird delivery is not as abrasive to the ears as I initially thought; to be honest at first I thought I won't last until the end, but on the contrary, after playing it a couple of times I find it quite adapted to the situation, quite fit for this genre. Maybe my words here would give you the impression of an accessible material, but this is quite far from it, I could only recommend it to fans of the most brutal Black Death and War Metal music, from from those only to the ones used to lo-fi quality production demo tapes.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 6/10

Contact:
blackstream1.bandcamp.com