Reviews

Heidenreich

Discography:
"A Death Gate Cycle"
"Trance of an Unholy Union"

Heidenreich - "Trance Of An Unholy Union"

HEIDENREICH - "Trance Of An Unholy Union"...... This album will take you into the void of Extreme Black Metal in it's most purest and obscure strange forms! As amazing as this recording is, it contains experimental Black Metal, samples, synths and freezing melodies. This album is not like HEIDENREICH's first release entitled "A Death Gate Cycle" at all really, it's more strange in ways but is also much more extreme. "Trance Of Unholy Union" starts out with a really cool intro entitled "An Incarnation's Dream" which lasts for 2:43, it sets a atmosphere for what you will experience from this recording. Hard to describe the musical content of this track and other HEIDENREICH material on this release because it is quite original in my opinion. The second track "Cosmic Reflections" starts out with electronic sounds, kind of trancing actually for 37 seconds then the track turns Black Metal from there, the music is extreme, raw, chilling, and melodic. The best thing about this release is that it gets more and more extreme and chilling the more you go into the album! The album contains 8 tracks and total play time is 41:34. One of the strangest things about this recording is that the last track is not Black Metal, it's kind of classical with the piano, and jazz/blues like with the guitar, (which surprised the shit out me, and it's quite good guitar work!) an instrumental that lasts 6:40 and ends in a Black Metal kind of way, very cool track. The piano really reminds me of "Moonlight Sonata" from famous classical composer Bach, because it sounds very similar but it is original and the feel of the track is very close to the same feel you get from Bach's piece. HEIDENREICH is now joined with Lucia M. Faroutan-K of GRABESMOND, because of a line-up change that occurred in HEIDENREICH during the recording of the release. "Trance Of An Unholy" is excellent, I strongly suggest picking it up on the release date of the 1st of March, It WILL catch your interest and quite possibly blacken your soul even more!!! Since I received the promo from Peter I haven't quit listening to it as it seems to get better at every listen! Let it be known that by you supporting HEIDENREICH, you support the Glorification of Satan.

Contact:
Napalm Records
Vordernberger Str. 20
8790 Eienerz
Austria / Östrerreich

Heidenreich
Vereinsgasse 25/20
1020 Wien
Austria / Österreich

Obtained Enslavement-

Discography:
"Out of the Crypts"-Demo '93
"Centuries of Sorrow"-'94
"Witchcraft"-'97
"Soulblight"-'99

Obtained Enslavement-"Soulblight"

OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT has returned with a new offering entitled "Soulblight", this time on NAPALM RECORDS! As all OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT releases once again a line-up change has occurred with Morrigan (Aeternus) and T. Reaper (Gorgoroth & Malignant Eternal), Tortur, the bass player on "Witchcraft" was kicked out of the band right after the recording was finished on "Witchcraft" and T. Reaper took his place... Anyway, the album starts out with an intro called "A Black Odyssey," pretty cool but no where near topping the intro on the "Witchcraft" CD and this release does not contain an outro like the last release did, just pure extreme Norwegian Black Metal from the start of the second track to the end... From there the next track is "The Dark Night Of Souls," Which starts out furiously! As this is how I know the band OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT at their best! This whole CD is really good, in my opinion more extreme then the "Witchcraft" CD and the music is better played with better musicianship and sound quality. It's a release that is extreme and melodic at the same time, with the album being influenced by classical artists such as Saeverud, Grieg, Beethoven, R. Wagner, and Bach. Which is cool, but at the same time it leaves the recording as sort of a mixture of unrelated material, because the piano plays in the background throughout many of the tracks, often not really taking to the same atmosphere that the tracks create, still it is a really good release from these Norwegians who first captured my interest with their last release "Witchcraft." The majority of the music on this release was mainly written between Heks and Døden and lyrics mostly were written by Døden and Pest (just as most of "Witchcraft" was). But everyone in the band had a hand in writing the material of the release, even Morrigan wrote the words for the track "Voice From A Starless Domain." You get only 7 tracks on this new release by OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT but the total running time of this release is about 43:08. This is a great release once again by OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT and overall I'd say that they topped their last release "Witchcraft". So hopefully the line-up of OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT is now complete for the first time since they started in 1989!

Obtained Enslavement
Strandgaten 84
5004 Bergen
Norway

Myrmidon

Myrmidon-Divine Blasphemy-Demo '99

MYRMIDON is a new band from Texas, USA. This demo is their first recording. The demo consists of 5 tracks of Black Metal music. Really well produced demo, the sound quality is really good for the most part, probably one of the cleanest sounding demo's I've ever heard with the exception of the way the drums were recorded. I interviewed this band on my first issue of Realms Of Darkness Zine, before their demo was even made. At that time they were only a two man band that consisted of Shade (strings) and Buer (drums, and vocals), since then they added a third member- Nunrape. This demo is pretty good, not as extreme in deepness of sound, as the demo is a pretty clean recording, but this band is certainly Blasphemous! And the next demo is guaranteed to be more extreme and grim by guitarist Shade's words! The rise of American Black Metal has been going pretty strong in the past few years, where bands are emerging from everywhere, some just plain out suck, others are certainly worth picking up, MYRMIDON is one of those bands that are worth picking up! The demo is available from the band right now, but it will also be carried very soon on my distro Realms Of Darkness and by Abyss Productions, the demo's are CD format as well and comes with great cover art. The music is fast, extreme, and pretty skilled guitar playing, the vocals are a little like a cross of Black Metal and Black/Death. It is an interesting recording. No keyboards and gay female vocals either!!! Which is the best kind of extreme in my opinion!

Ravens Over Gomorrah

Ravens Over Gomorrah - 'Blasphemous hymns, Nighttime serenades' demo '98

Ravens Over Gomorrah is a US Black metal band. This demo contains 4 tracks. I'll have to say that this demo is a mixture of melodic/atmospheric Black Metal with extremeness to it. But I think I also have to say that I don't think this demo is 100% either, it has it's down parts. One of them being that the recording is ok, nothing great with the production. Second and more important thing is that the music is a mixture of well played and then some not so well played parts, I noticed some parts here and there where the bands time accuracy is not so great. The keyboards in this bands music is pretty good, well played and not so over done like many bands tend to do these days in their music. The extreme music parts are as I said not so great all the time. This is a band that certainly holds some really good potential for their future no doubt. But right now, with this demo, I wouldn't call it a great recording. This band kind of did catch some of my interest though, as I said I think this is a band that holds a lot of potential for their future. I hate to give a "bad review" (in which I don't think this is all that bad of a review), but I have to be fair and give my honest opinion on it, other wise there is no sense in me reviewing it at all. Hopefully the guy Mike in this band will keep me informed on their progress from time to time, I'm interested in giving their next demo a listen, as I'm sure it will be better then their current attempt, as all bands take a while to find "their" sound.

Pagan

Pagan -'Heathen Upheaval' demo '98

PAGAN is a 3 member band from Türkiye, they are a mixture of atmospheric/melodic Black Metal and it's very well played! I think this demo is excellent actually and the sound quality is really great as well! The demo contains 5 tracks including a intro and outro so that is 7 tracks all together you get, the music is well played, the timing is excellent, the vocals are really good as well, and the music kind of takes you on a journey of thoughts into an obscure abyss. There is a lot of keyboards in this recording but the music is also pretty fast and heavy except for when it's only the keyboards playing. This band kind of reminds me of Thy Serpent in a way, but different and kind of original. The guitar work on this recording is excellent as well and it includes acoustic guitar parts also. I'd certainly say that this band will be around for a long time (they were formed in 'the winter of '95 but had some line-up changes, the only original member is Talciron who actually was the one who formed PAGAN in the first place). Hopefully this band will make a new demo in the current year, I'm certainly interested in hearing more of them. The demo's total running time is 35 minutes and the demo only costs a low $5 (Europe) $6 (overseas), and the cool thing about this band is that they give demo's for free to zines, labels, and distro's to have a listen and review. I may get back in contact with Talciron about distro'ing this demo on Realms and possibly an interview also, I liked it so much. In any case, I give this demo a great recommendation.

Centurian

Centurian - "Of Purest Fire"

CENTURIAN is a Death Metal band off Full Moon Productions label. This band could be compared to Deicide because they sound similar to one another, but a little different I suppose. This release is great though and contains two cover songs, the first is "Blasphemy" from Morbid Angel and the second is "Damnation For The Holy" by Inquisitor. Both cover songs are great and keep to the original sound of the tracks, which is what I like when cover tracks are done in the first place. The CD contains one intro and an outro and there are 8 tracks total. The release has song titles like "Evoking Demonstorms Hell At Last", (which is actually the intro), "Better off Burning", "God got Killed", and "Of Purest Fire." All and all this is a great Death Metal release, and I only paid like $13 for it.

Label contact address:
Full Moon Productions
2039 Roxburgh Court
Lakeland, FL 33813
USA

Label website:
www.fmp666.com

Summon

Summon - "Dark Descent Of Fallen Souls" (Grinding Peace Records)

SUMMON is a US Black Metal band from Michigan. This release contains 11 tracks. It starts out with an intro that is of a burning fire sound, thunder, and keyboards for kind of a medieval/majestic feel I suppose... which lasts for like 1 minute and 38 seconds. The first track is certainly very metal, which kind of reminds me of the material you would find from the first Demoniac album "Prepare for War." There are two vocalists for SUMMON as well and they are Necromodeus and Eaphan, the other member is Amduscius. In any case, this album is an exploration of METAL where at time it is a little slow in speed (but not too slow) and then at other times very brutal and obscure! Some song titles of this album are "Enter Into Eternal Oath", "Eve Of The Anti-Creation", "Beyond The Gates Of Storm", "Necromantic Lust", "The Silence Of Chaos", "Sorrows Of Moonless Night", etc... Out of the US BM "scene" I'd say SUMMON are among one of the best bands you'll find in this country for Black Metal... They also have some Black/Death Metal in their music which is cool for the mixture. Total running time on this release is about 45 minutes or so.

Page one-|- Page three
Page four-|- Page five

Back to Contributed Review List
Back to Review List