V/A
NO COLOURS RECORDS - Compilation Vol III
NoColours Records
It’s
a pleasure to present the deadly roster of NoColours, a label that have always
keep a very personal profile, promoting band who have done history of recent and
past Black and Harsh Pagan Metal, I’m referring to Nargaroth and Graveland.
Nargaroth is here present with a song from the "Rasluka-Part II" a
perfect example of reason of their cult status, a song full of sad blackness
with a with a dramatic and monumental feeling created by the cold guitar storm.
Graveland are represented by one of the best song of their last release, "Memory
and Destiny", this song is so full of the typical mystic and epic darkness
of the Rob Darken’s project, again I have to say that in my opinion this one
is not their best but Graveland is always Graveland, a band that will reign.
I’ve also heard with a certain interest the Lord Wind introductive song, the
folk epic project of the Graveland’s mastermind is a perfect hymn to the pagan
vengeance keeping the icy sound of the Rob’s roots.
Abyss Hate showed an interesting evolution with their last burzumish suicide
album, here we have an advanced demo track but after all this song is a too
regular form of old style Black Metal to impress an experienced listener like
me, personally I preferred the strangled atmosphere of the previous songs.
Juvenes have done a more thrashy and old style version of the bathory epic hymn
of their debut, where those two faces are melted together something interesting
comes on, like in the song that here is taken from "Where Heroes
Rise". Wigrid is a band that already captured my attention with their
"Hoffnungstod", the song that here’s under their name is an
unreleased one that follow the superb sombre shadow of the gloomy Black Metal
obscurity of this album, listen to them...they’re deadly. Judas Iscariot’s
"To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding" is not my cup of tea , but here a
song from the superb mini-album "Moonlight Butchery" is presented to
give a right exposition to one of the few historical American band that deserve
the attention of the European black horde. I will review Woodtemple on this
review update, but from now I can say that they bring back the clock to the
Graveland "Following the Voice of Blood" masterpiece, sombre music for
the rebirth of hate and terror. Slaves and Suicidal Winds are too thrashy and
old-style to appeal to my taste, they can be something to check for those who
are totally into ’80 atmosphere, also the Thors’ Hammer songs show this face
of that band, but their "The Fate Worse Than Death" album have also
some more modish but extreme songs. Gaahlskagg is a band to drive you to madness,
their Black Metal is influenced by Thrash Metal in this one taken from "Erotic
Funeral", I still remember the songs inspired by the Norwegian tradition
distorted by a groovy approach, the songs here is a good example of their noisy
assault. Welthmacht are a good surprise, never heard about them before, they
play in a similar way to Judas Iscariot but with a more ’80 influence on the
background, "The Second Wrath of Nihilism", also some synth appear
with moderation...I Will check them in the future...
Satanic Warmaster are a very strong act coming from Finland, I’ve heard their
last mini-cd released by Northern Heritage and they’ve impressed me with their
not too fast devilish form of Black Metal, very old style and full of dark
atmosphere, the unreleased song here is something that also promise something
good thing for the future, only the starting synths part isn’t so necessary,
they already create something excellent without, but when they appear the second
time they adda very gloomy mood, broken by a bloody thrash raw guitar to come
back again...damn good song!
Curse are a Symphonic Black Metal band who are not become too tiny, keeping
alive the primordial spirit of that genre, I like them.
Ild