This time out, I can only say - WHOA! In the words of Nathan Explosion of Dethklok - it’s BRUTAL. Seriously, don’t follow that link unless you’re prepared for the onslaught. Very tight, very well executed Norwegian style Black Metal from the heart of Ohio. Ihsahn would be proud.

Obviously, not for the faint of heart or you Cradle fans who think you know what that scene is all about. Not dissin’ Cradle here, but when I say oldschool. . . I fucking mean it.   And considering the state of ‘the scene’ these days, anyone ANYWHERE who’s true to the sound and inspiration of that movement. . . well, I think they deserve a serious listen.  ‘The Glorious Return’. . . go play it.  g’head.   Excellently heavy and as full of hatred as anything Gorgoroth can conjure.

Another fav - “Come Drink Mead With Us”. . .well, I’d like to think I was an inspiration.  Prolly not, but I’d like to think so. 

Horns Bolthorn.  Well done & I wish you lots o’ luck.

But what I found interesting was the press release’s direct quote that Celtic Frost “will be performing in honor of their long-standing friend and mentor”, H. R. Giger. I’m a huge Giger fan and their connection with the artist is fairly well known (”To Mega Therion’s” cover, most notably). But it does make me wanna ask - “Uh Mr. Giger, can you stop the boys next time from EVER releasing another album like ‘Cold Lake’? Ok, to be fair - it was just Tom - but dammit man, use your influence! Save him from himself!!”

There, I’m better now. We’ve all forgiven Tom, right?

Besides, Mr. Warrior is a bit of an artist himself, it would seem. He’s selling off custom painted ‘deathmasks’ on his Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/antecedent_death) for a hefty sum of about $400 or so apiece. Selling them out too. Furthermore, if you creep around his official Antecedent Death site a bit (http://selfdeceased.blogspot.com/) you can also find a few prints he’s currently offering in addition to the deathmasks, with the possiblity of more artwork becoming available in the future. It will be interesting to see if any of Giger’s influence can felt in those works - y’know, since they’re buds and all.

And finally, to bring us full circle H. R. Giger has announced he will be illustrating the next Backstreet Boys album. . .KIDDING. I know, I know - not EVEN funny.

Just hated to end on too upbeat of a note.

I do have to disagree with the majority of, in my opinion, uninformed and naive opinions expressed in the thread regarding Black Metal as a whole. You simply can’t stereotype an entire subgenre of ANY type of music based on look, artwork or even sound - although forming a preconceived opinion of a band by it’s sound does make the most sense if anything does. And of course, if you’ve actually listened to the band then it’s not really preconceived, is it? But I digress. . .

As is typical, people want to put labels on things to make it easier to pass judgement, without really getting to know the subject of which they are commenting. It’s human nature and often times stereotypes exist for a reason. Perhaps an antiquated or absurd reason, but validity is in the eye of the beholder.  Yet if anyone bothered to research their subject even a modicum, they’d find for every ‘typical’ Black Metal band like Darkthrone there is something entirely different in the same subgenre - such as Ulver or Vampiric Ritual or Vaakevandring. 

Sad to see in these so-called days of enlightenment, and by peers that are ’supposedly’ open-minded, that the status quo is still the lowest rung on the ladder.  C’est la vie, eh?

On the bright side, I did find the mention of http://www.skuls.no as very amusing & clever.  It’s a Norwegian site that sells t-shirts of faux Black Metal bands (with nifty logos) made from common words like ‘weekday’, ‘office’ or ‘bread’.  All in hopes that some non-Norwegian poserboys will buy them up and wear’em out to shows.  Brilliant!

My personal favorite is the logo for Gravid, which means ‘pregnant’ in Norwegian.  I kinda resemble that one what with my god-like appearance (Buddha).

Now if they would just do a shirt for marokkaner “moron” or drømmen “dreamer”, then I might actually have to buy a shirt (thanks to http://www.tranexp.com/ for the help on translating those!)

Frankly, these guys have balls!  I mean, it takes a lot of kahuna’s to work for so long on an album, then to turn right around and offer it up freely to prospective fans.  And I’m not talking edits of the album, or critic promos where someone talks over the music every 30 seconds to discourage illegal uploading.  I’m talking, the full album at 128 kbps bitrate - which is iTunes quality.

As I mentioned, the album itself is 8 songs, several of them clocking in at over 8 minutes apiece, for a total listening experience of well over 50 minutes.  This is both the good and the bad with this offering as a few of the songs (most notably “Home of the Gods - a 9 minute, 51 second opus) really could’ve benefited from being trimmed down to offset the redundancy of the piece.  Other songs such as “Our Kingdom is Rising” don’t seem as hampered by length as it adds to the overall cinemagraphic feel.

Mystic Shadows hail from Brazil but their sound is all Nordic - an epic, folk inspired Black Metal.  The Myspace page lists Bathory, Summoning, Finntroll and others as their main influences, and to this end they really do seem to have the ‘early’ Black metal sound down.  What is interesting is unlike the early work of their influences, Mystic Shadows has decent production, excellent & atmospheric keyboards and a haunting chorus in places that to me, add a level of complexity and richness to their songs that I found missing from some of the early, more minimalist bands.  Purists will undoubtably disagree but I urge you to listen to the album before passing judgement.

The band consists of growling vocalist/guitarist Myth and keyboardist Arntor, assisted in the studio by Earth [Seduced by Suicide/Blood Tears] who handled singing the clean vocals, playing several instruments and production, as well as session drummer Thungoroth.  They consider themselves Epic Black Metal, and I won’t disagree as most of their songs could’ve been used in a movie soundtrack - some even having the clashes of steel and the screams of battle in the background.  They have a symphonic (I know, a dirty word in this genre) quality with interludes of celtic inspired accoustic guitar and soft, spoken verse.

I preferred the more melodic ‘Pagan Memories’ and the aforementioned ‘Our Kingdom is Rising’ as the better tunes in the set, but if you’re a fan of Viking or Battle metal, you’ll not be disappointed with any of the eight.  

These guys should get signed in the very near future and hopefully be able to do some touring to support their work.  Odds are they’ll probably end up a household name in Europe, and deservedly so.

 In the meantime, I recommend doning your sword and shield - and giving them a listen.  They can be found HERE

The title comes, I’m assuming, from Romans 5:12 which in the King James version states “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”. mmmmmmk. What’cha sayin’, boys?

Now if you’re familiar with the previous works of Morgan Håkansson and company, you’ll not find too much new territory covered here albeit there are at least variable tempos to choose from. A few creepy intros here & there lead into brutal and heavy guitar parts, accompanied by machingun drumming and the sound of vocalist Mortuus vomiting up his soul onto a microphone. Still, it’s well produced, melodic in places and full of aggression. My favs so far include ‘Vanity of Vanities’, ‘Imago Mortis’, ‘Womb of Perishableness’ and the eerily atmospheric ‘Damnation 1651′. I by far prefer the medium tempo offerings over the blast beats, but that’s just me, and the disc seems about half and half of each.

‘Accuser/Opposer’ is probably the highpoint and possibly a new milestone for Black Metal as a whole. Yeah, it’s that good! It features clean guest vocals by Primordial’s Nemtheanga, whose vocal prowess definitely adds a new dimension wherein the dual vocal parts acentuate rather than eclipse each other. And plainly, the song just ROCKS! It has a strong, defined melody that dare I say, is catchy without smacking of attempted airplay.

All in all, this is a worthy effort by these battle-honed veterans of the unholy wars. I’m sure some will complain (as they always do) but the band has released a well produced and listenable slice of darkness to appease the hordes.

The disc is the band’s first concept album, whose story revolves around a disillusioned clergy who turns to the darkside. Unfortunately, the lyrics don’t really build a story so much as they repeat similar themes. I guess that still constitutes a concept album but it’s nothing like say, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, if you get my meaning.

The marketing aspects of this CD are at an all time, what with four different variations released including a very limited leather bound book (which is the version I chose to go with, making it the most expensive CD I’ve every bought!). Alternately there is the US only release with a bonus song (”The Heretic Hammer”) and DVD, the European release with a DIFFERENT bonus song (”The Ancestral Fever”) and DVD, and finally the Japanese release with yet another bonus song (a cover of Venom’s “Black Metal”). I wouldn’t call this selling out, but it’s definitely in the ‘cashing in’ category. Somewhat frustrating from a fan’s point of view in that all 3 bonus songs are not available on any single release. What kind of concept album has different bonus tracks, anyways!?

Regardless, it’s an excellent album that only slightly disappoints in that it isn’t all that amazingly different from what we’ve heard before. All in all, if you like full pummelling symphonic metal (with more than a dab of Satanism thrown in for good measure), then this may be for you.