Glorior Belli - The Great Southern Darkness review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Doom / Sludge hybrid
Label : Metal Blade Records
Origin : France
Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Glorior Belli's latest opens a voodoo portal on you that transfers your sorry ass to the immediate vicinity of an extremely irritated and 3 meters long crocodile in Naouleens, - pronunciation : New Orleans - so the plan of this spin is none less than to consort the exquisitely massive and monumentally lazy nature of sludge music with the restlessness of especially unforgiving black metal.

The Great Southern Darkness - try to find the very sloppily hidden tribute to The Great Southern Trendkill in the title - comes to you with a core that declares this delivery as a black metal album at heart, yet the LP's highly grim character packs the aspiration to claim the southern vibes via a good amount of elegantly researched methods that reek the fat promise of good old impending doom. Read on to find out more about these elements, or be voodooed proper, biatch.


The compositions on this record are both solid and flamboyant, and all primer components of them - black metal, dainty doom and bloated sludge - are presented in an eloquent, well varied fashion. None of the respective methods of the ingredients get abused at constant top-efficiency to harass the epitome of instant effect. In other words, it must be pointed out that this album, wisely enough, does not seek to serve out your anticipations by blast beating your misery on the altars of instant southern sludge, it instead is focused to give a kind of doom-tinted black metal, that which gets constantly assuaged by a much more calmer - but still mean - stroll along the southern sludge vibes.

The closest the album comes to-, and fulfills your initial anticipations you are likely to cultivate, is the third track, called They Call Me Black Devil. This song gives you a superb rendition of southern sludge having an explicit affair with specter-black metal, and the next track that follows this one up, sounds extremely strong with its unalloyed misery spilled all over the place in the style of a more sorrowful kind of doom, that which though still has the will to move on. Oh, and the fact that the track's first segment has nothing southern about it, is an embarrassment to complain about.

One beneficial key factor of Glorior Belli's latest declaration is its capacity to surprise you without end while the spin lasts. Once you find yourself more and more accustomed to any central moods the album is fond of revealing, the more closer you are to a dramatic change in the fabric of things. These changes never trade variation in for less efficiency, and an intact build that has sober capacity to flatter and consort traditional black metal / impending doom and massive sludge, indeed is established and decently delivered. The last 20 seconds of the album is especially rabid compared to the character of the release. Why did I just say that? Because I just have heard it.

All in all, The Great Southern Darkness delivers ruthlessly, despite any qualms a culturesnob position may give birth to. If you have enjoyed this release, you may also find luscious pleasure in a death / doom hybrid, scrutinized herein. As for The Great Southern Darkness, the naked intent to consort black with thick sludge and slim doom, results in stable, mean success with razor sharp crocodile teeth, and it seeks to rip out a piece of you. As a start.

Rating : 8.0 / 10

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Book of Black Earth - The Cold Testament review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal / Death Metal
Label : Prosthetic Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Book of Black Earth brings you a hybrid that has nothing to worry about its own capacity to live, regardless how it is composed of two extreme subgenres of violent guitar molestation. This American formation delivers soberly controlled, nevertheless furious death metal by utilizing the tools of black metal, spouting a well placed tribute or two towards classic punk vibes here and there.

The Cold Testament is an LP with tremendous power and charm behind the snarl it stands for at heart, and also one that does not sacrifice its own efficiency for misplaced sentiments towards bloated aspirations. With its 36 minutes, The Cold Testament gives you this exact amount of time you will spend with the demonic hound on the cover, making sure that these 36 minutes will be channeled through an evident intent of beating your psyche to an embarrassing pile of spirit pulp. And beyond.



The relatively short spin time of this noise device is a beneficial trade for the special kind of character this album represents, considering how its fabric seems to follow the unspoken rules of an exploitation movie. The Cold Testament LP runs around with its ass on constant fire, with a crazy mojo in its eyes telling about a not-so secretive hope of how this fire might be contagious upon (ear) contact.

The compositions are mature, well structured, and extremely well controlled, reigning in constant success at rendering a full speed truck with no driver in your vicinity. It is a form of organized sonic massacre, one though that is free of the everyday average cheap magic tricks or obtrusive elements to crave easily harvested musical appreciation. Instead, everything does what it does best on high octane efficiency. The guitar work succeeds masterfully at picking-packing the proper menace while remaining genuinely playful and elegant, whereas the drums bitchslap it at will, just to chase it around on top of - and this IS something - meaningful blast beats.

Blast beats, paradoxically enough, are prone to be abused beyond common sense, as the restlessness they express is an emotional register on its own, and many do seem to satisfy with the act of throwing in relatively irrelevant riffage in the background, hoping that the intensity of the blast beat itself will sell the attraction out, no problem. Book of Black Earth, fortunately enough, takes its vision of constant focus seriously, rendering legit riff on top of legit riff without end, recruiting the mere possibility to deliver rhythmic variations and dynamic shifts as the invaluable tool of tasteful flamboyancy. Sounds logical enough? It indeed does, during the spin of this angry affair. It is clear that The Cold Testament has a whole lot of serious and devoted work behind its, and, as hinted, it does not commit the mistake of offering anything else or less than a fabric of elaborate musical sequences sewn of diligent, mature compositional efforts.

The LP shows a furious face initially, and decides to keep the grin intact along the way. There is a whole lot going on in these action packed tracks, flirting with various prime aspects of the genres they seek to skillfully compliment. The layered tremolo riffing to invite the flamethrower feel of black metal is as present and ready to be unleashed as is the twin guitar pair to smash through you with the intricacy of technical death metal. The Cold Testament has the quite welcomed tendency to offer its inventions in multiple forms, and, as such, you will witness the actual riff in different form and shape on the left and right channels.

As for the vocal performance, melody is not particularly present, and here is why : it simply did not get the fucking invitation card. Good old fashioned chest scream is the name of the game here, that reigns totally and completely free of the over-emoted, somewhat laughable, but certainly miserable direction of other-, vaguely related genres. The Cold Testament is a hell hound weighing around 667 pounds, eager to sit on your chest and demand an honest reaction from you. One thing is for sure : you WILL give yours, after it gave you the thorough stare it is most certainly capable of giving.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Frozen Ocean - Vestigial Existence review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal
Label : Nihil Art Records
Origin : Russia
Rating : 7.3 / 10

Vestigial Existence does a diligent, acceptable job at rendering a clear picture of the ancient soul-dirt black metal seems to devotedly fixate itself upon. On paper, Frozen Ocean brings you this blackened kind of metal soaked into flammable fluids of atmospheric punishment.

On the disc, and, in reality though, this is a pretty traditional and archetypical - in the good sense of the term - black metal outing, and the only atmospheric traits it has are the opening track and some flute playing, being introduced at the latter portion of the affair. The choosing of the words is not accidental, as the flute playing herein does not ever pass through the "some flute playing" mark, indeed. Not on this record, which, nevertheless, has some very favorable offerings to entertain your ears and moods with. Read on to find out more about those.



With Vestigial Existence, Frozen Ocean addresses its thorough understanding of the genre's favorite modes of vibe invitation without any particular and/or obtrusive intention to add anything alien or new to those. The main factor herein is a pronounced, super-thick stringed section, that has not much if anything to worry if the drums have less of a presence : the percussion indeed lacks the extreme punch, but it delivers the luscious pulse with convince power and without doubt, and this exactly what the idea is.

In its character, monumental the stringed section may be, yet it does not overkill. As result of solid, sober production work, each stringed sonic cannon has its respective place and field of operation in the mix it can spout its sentiments in, while the fields themselves have a modest, nevertheless doubtlessly existent tendency to create interesting patterns of co-existent sound entities. More often than above or below it, Vestigial Existence delivers acceptably in this regard, giving you a rather efficient starting section, smuggling / hiding the tracks with relatively less efficient sections or twisted beauty in them with a good sense of balance as far as the time they are worth entertaining for.

One of the most impressive additions this album can proudly call its own, is the performance of the vocalist AND the production team, as it sounds like that the vocals are coming from beyond a huge metal door, and you do not want to confront the dude on the other side - if a dude he is, at all. He constantly reigns at the verge of losing it totally and completely, wielding an omni-present and authentic rasp to unleash declarations from an utterly, trustily disillusioned stance of contemplation with.

The compositions vary between relatively slow and medium tempo builds, this time around giving a gloomily suggested middle finger to evident intensity. The relative calmness of the spin does not take away from the quality at all, quite the contrary : it is nice to see and hear an album that dares to choose and maintain a central mood register, as each track is a variation on a similar feel, inviting a sense of coherence - that came out kind of weird - to coat the affair in.

Apart from the flutes, that have nothing else to do than to address their mere presence from time to time, and some tame sections of gloom here and there that crave cheap appreciation just to fail at it masterfully, Vestigial Existence comes to you and remains a spin you can safely hop on if you want to subject yourself to black metal done diligently and traditionally.

Rating : 7.3 / 10

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