Svartsyn - Destruction Of Man
2003 - Sound Riot Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Sound Riot website.
It's strange to think that Svartsyn have managed to operate largely underneath the radar for so long - since forming as Chalice back in 1991, changing their name to Svartsyn in 1993, and releasing a couple of full-length albums and a brace of demos, promos and EPs, after three years of general inactivity their third full-length album is finally upon us, and it's just about time that everyone sat up and began to take notice.
Entirely composed by Ornias (vocals, guitars and bass) with drumming performed by Draugen (former Dark Funeral drummer), Destruction Of Man is seven tracks of chilling, raw black metal with just enough melody to prevent it from becoming montonal. Reference points worth mentioning are early Marduk, Darkthrone and early Mayhem, perhaps with a touch of Carpathian Forest in there too. The songs are generally fast, brutal and very, very nasty sounding - there's an aura of malevolence permeating from this disk that easily contends with any of the other back-to-basics black metallers doing the rounds at the moment.
Cavernous vocal production, relentless drumming, guitar riffs that slice away like scissors in a vortex - what more could one want? Well, there are one or two little bugbears - the almost constant hyper-speed pace of tracks like 'Demons Walking On Earth' can mean that the listener's attention begins to drop away after a while, leaving the rest of the song to go by as a near-subliminal background noise. Also, the drums are somewhat quiet in the mix - occasionally crash cymbals cut through, and the double-bass barrage is an ever-present entity, but other elements of the kit are sometimes lost in the guitar assault.
However, for these little gripes, this is still an essential and genuinely sinister release for black metal purists who, like Svartsyn, deem keyboard-led black metal to be cheap and fake. Well worth a look.
8.5/10
2003 - Sound Riot Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Sound Riot website.
It's strange to think that Svartsyn have managed to operate largely underneath the radar for so long - since forming as Chalice back in 1991, changing their name to Svartsyn in 1993, and releasing a couple of full-length albums and a brace of demos, promos and EPs, after three years of general inactivity their third full-length album is finally upon us, and it's just about time that everyone sat up and began to take notice.
Entirely composed by Ornias (vocals, guitars and bass) with drumming performed by Draugen (former Dark Funeral drummer), Destruction Of Man is seven tracks of chilling, raw black metal with just enough melody to prevent it from becoming montonal. Reference points worth mentioning are early Marduk, Darkthrone and early Mayhem, perhaps with a touch of Carpathian Forest in there too. The songs are generally fast, brutal and very, very nasty sounding - there's an aura of malevolence permeating from this disk that easily contends with any of the other back-to-basics black metallers doing the rounds at the moment.
Cavernous vocal production, relentless drumming, guitar riffs that slice away like scissors in a vortex - what more could one want? Well, there are one or two little bugbears - the almost constant hyper-speed pace of tracks like 'Demons Walking On Earth' can mean that the listener's attention begins to drop away after a while, leaving the rest of the song to go by as a near-subliminal background noise. Also, the drums are somewhat quiet in the mix - occasionally crash cymbals cut through, and the double-bass barrage is an ever-present entity, but other elements of the kit are sometimes lost in the guitar assault.
However, for these little gripes, this is still an essential and genuinely sinister release for black metal purists who, like Svartsyn, deem keyboard-led black metal to be cheap and fake. Well worth a look.
8.5/10
