Peaceville, 2004
- BLASPHEMY - Winds of the Black Godz
- SARCÓFAGO - Satanic Lust
- CELTIC FROST - Dawn of Megiddo
- NATTEFROST - Sluts of Hell
- MERCYFUL FATE - Evil
- SODOM - Burst Command til War
- TORMENTOR - Elisabeth Bathori
- AURA NOIR - Blood Unity
- DESTRUCTION - Curse the Gods
- SAMAEL - Into the Pentagram
- BULLDOZER - Whisky Time
- MAYHEM - The Freezing Moon
- HELLHAMMER - The Third of the Storms
- BURZUM - Ea, Lord of the Deeps
- VENOM - Warhead
- BATHORY - Dies Irae
BLASPHEMY - "Winds of the Black Godz"
The intro from the legendary Fallen Angel of Doom album by the, to my knowledge, only black metal band with an actual black member in it. It's nothing special, being just a bunch of run-of-the-mill intro-type noises, and one might ask why Fenriz didn't include an actual real BLASPHEMY song, but then again I kind of like the idea of having an intro on a V/A comp... Gives the whole thing a bit of coherence and "album" feeling.
SARCÓFAGO - "Satanic Lust"
From the oft-worshipped 1987 LP I.N.R.I. comes this piece of highly influential, important and blasphemous black/thrash metal. A good example of SARCÓFAGO's influence were the rather early examples of the single-note, tremolo picked melody riffs which would later become a staple of the black metal genre, with their melodicism taken to their extreme by DARKTHRONE and the Transilvanian Hunger LP. Other than that, this is a perfect musical disaster of drums going as fast as the drummer could possibly manage, rasped vocals in horribly broken English and frenzied, totally incompetent soloing. I shouldn't have to tell you how utterly this album and song rule.
CELTIC FROST - "Dawn of Megiddo"
80's CELTIC FROST... True innovators of metal, managing to be completely avant-garde and use stuff like horns and timpanis for dramatic impact without it sounding like simply a gimmick. This song is a good choice to represent CF, since it's similar to the early Morbid Tales style, while showcasing some of the orchestral/progressive elements that are present on the rest of the To Mega Therion LP and would be emphasised and taken even further on the subsequent Into the Pandemonium. Let's not talk about what came after THAT, though...
NATTEFROST - "Sluts of Hell"
The first of two new bands retaining the 80's spirit on the compilation, this is Nattefrost's (vocalist of CARPATHIAN FOREST) solo project. I count about three riffs in the entire song, I hear lyrics about "SLUTS OF HELL! CUNTS OF EVIL! SWORN ENEMY OF THE NAZARENE!" and a drum machine, "played, not programmed." Totally catchy and endearing in all its raw simplicity, this definitely does fit in the compilation despite its 2004 release date.
MERCYFUL FATE - "Evil"
Opener track on Melissa, the first song of the darkest heavy metal band ever, with one of the genre's most distinctive singers. I don't know how much else there is to say about this; you can't but love it, and it is obvious that MERCYFUL FATE should have a place on any old-school BM compilation.
SODOM "Burst Command 'til War"
Aah... BAHST COMMAND TILL UAAAAAAARGH!, a personal favourite. I could go on for hours ranting about the greatness of SODOM's first release, the In the Sign of Evil EP. Objectively a complete and total clusterfuck of an album, with lyrics only remotely resembling English and with several classic, quotable formulations ("MY LIFE BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT TWELVE! MASTURBATE TO KILL MYSELF! BLASPHEMAAARGH!",) song structures entailing "play riff, play another riff, play yet another riff, rinse, lather, repeat," the most evil, sore-throated 1984 vocals this side of BATHORY, guitars struggling to keep up with the barely in-time drums (or is it the other way around?) and totally obscure, yet clear, production... but -- as is the case with so many other bands on this comp -- sheer honesty, dedication, conviction and pure inventiveness makes up for it in bundles. This track is not my personal favourite from the disc (that would be "SHRILL CRIES! ANGEL DIES! OUT-BREAK OF EVIL!") but nevertheless a great, timeless classic and reminder of when metal was still truly innovative, and completely honest...
TORMENTOR "Elisabeth Bathori"
Did you ever wonder who really started the whole deal with huge walls of ethereal synths in black metal? Well wonder no longer, because though BATHORY and, I'm sure, a number of other bands had dabbled in the matter before, Hungary's TORMENTOR pretty much laid down the foundations for synth usage in black metal with their 1988 Anno Domini LP, sadly still severely out of print and hard to lay one's grubby hands on. Listen to EMPEROR's In the Nightside Eclipse, or listen to Dark Medieval Times or For All Tid, and you will undoubtedly hear heaps of TORMENTOR influence. Influence aside, this song is a chillingly beautiful "story about Elizabeth Bathori." With epic song structures, plenty of heavy metal influence (see MERCYFUL FATE) and incredible atmosphere, this is a real masterpiece of a song. Re-print it already!
AURA NOIR "Blood Unity"
The second of the newer songs is by AURA NOIR, friends of Fenriz and black-thrashers extraordinaire. The vocalist sounds like a more nasal, punkish version of Tom G. Warrior (complete with UH!'s and HERE WE GO!'s) and the music sounds like it's straight out of the eighties, with fitting production to boot. Catchy chorus and riffing, nothing to complain about here; AURA NOIR keeps the old flame burning in an admirable way. Now if Blasphemer would only focus on this band instead of the entirely pointless new MAYHEM...
DESTRUCTION "Curse the Gods"
One of the least "black" songs on the album, but arguably thrash gods DESTRUCTION's finest song ever, and they've written more than their required share of good songs. KILLER atmospheric intro, breaking into the totally obvious but truly epic main riff section, and then the chorus: CURSE! THE GODS! TOO MANY PEOPLE! HAVE DIED! Total thrash metal terror at its best. Seeing the rejuvenated DESTRUCTION open with this at Wacken this year was pretty fucking amazing, let me tell you.
SAMAEL "Into the Pentagram"
SAMAEL were fairly underrated as one of the more important early 90's BM bands together with things like MAYHEM, DARKTHRONE and TREBLINKA. I'm sure people would have spoken of their early output more often were they from Norway instead of Switzerland, but at least Fenriz can be relied on to pay tribute to that which should be paid tribute to. On the Worship Him LP which this is taken from, SAMAEL played simple power chord black metal much like MAYHEM's Deathcrush or TIAMAT's Sumerian Cry, but with an inconceivably dark atmosphere. Sure, it's apparent that the vocalist must have been around 15 years at the time of recording and all, but the whole atmosphere and "image" concerning this utterly evil band around the first releases is unparalleled. Other than the atmosphere, this actually sounds kind of dated musically. Though I recognize the importance of early SAMAEL, they were never really interesting enough to my ears to climb very high on my list of favourite BM bands, and this song kind of plods along after a while without doing anything particularly interesting. BUT a very worthy inclusion.
BULLDOZER "Whisky Time"
The only band on the comp I hadn't heard before receiving this promo, BULLDOZER have been described as the Italian VENOM, and that's not far off. With lyrics worthy of TANKARD (I'm sure the song title gives you a hunch about the contents,) and totally simple punk'n'roll riffs very much in the vein of VENOM or something like that, this is great fun, but not much like modern black metal at all. Points deducted for the endlessly long and excruciatingly dull drum solo intro.
MAYHEM "The Freezing Moon"
"The Freezing Moon" in a 1991 studio recording originally made for the CBR compilation Projections of a Stained Mind with the definitive MAYHEM line-up, including Dead on vocals. I don't think anything else needs to be said..
HELLHAMMER "The Third of the Storms"
With the inclusion of this, I understand even better why Fenriz chose a CELTIC FROST song from To Mega Therion instead of the more primitive Morbid Tales: he probably wanted to show off both proto-CELTIC FROST (HELLHAMMER) at their most raw, and the quite amazing thing that CELTIC FROST would turn into on their second LP, seeing as both had different, important influences on black metal. Well, about the actual music, this is HELLHAMMER. Either you hate it or you worship it. About two riffs a song, rhythm patterns as simple as can be, and a healthy dose of "we are HELLHAMMER, fuck you" attitude. Mandatory as fuck.
BURZUM "Ea, Lord of the Deeps"
No further comment needed on the artist or song, or what influence BURZUM had on black metal, only this: BURZUM does not usually ever appear on compilations (as far as I know, the sole exception until now has been the track "Ett Hvitt Lys Øver Skogen" on Misanthropy Records' Presumed Guilty) but Fenriz received special permission for this comp. Good decision, Varg; whether or not you want anything to do with black metal now, leaving BURZUM out of a compilation like this would be disastrous indeed.
VENOM "Warhead"
Ah, we finally get to the VENOM song. A lesser known track, this one, as one would think the obvious choice would have been something like "Black Metal" or "Countess Bathory." As far as I know, "Warhead" was simply a single released on 12" and 7" vinyl, and didn't appear on any albums. Either way, this is a fine example of VENOM in their prime; too dark and primitive to be NWOBHM, too fucking metal to be punk, but not quite aggressive enough to be thrash just yet. Anyway, Chronos' vocals excel here with the random "UAAARGH UAAA"'s thrown in ever so often showing some great attitude, and there's nice riffing and so forth: good representation for an obvious band inclusion.
BATHORY "Dies Irae"
Here we go... The best of the balls-to-the-wall thrashers, from what is probably the best black metal LP of all time. Insanely catchy vocal rhythms ("CREED! OF! E! TER-NAL LIFE! I! SWORE!"), somewhat weird time signatures at breakneck speed, that completely perfect break at about 02:24 ("SEE HIS STAR ABLAZE HIS CHILDREN!"), melodic outro with metric tons of sheer atmosphere... This can not be praised enough. A perfect ending for the compilation... Hail the fucking hordes.
So there you have it, 16 tracks spanning sixty-one minutes of pure old-school black metal evil. You will have noticed that I did not give scores to the individual songs: that would be pretty irrelevant as this is the sort of compilation one buys to gain insight into a genre, and I can safely say that regardless of musical quality (which is generally very fucking high anyway) every band on this compilation deserves to be there. In the interview I conducted with Fenriz concerning this album, he mentioned a couple of bands he would've wanted to put on but couldn't for some reason, including IMMORTAL, but the compilation is really solid anyway, and the only band I spontaneously feel is missing is TREBLINKA. No big deal. This is hugely recommended for people who like newer black metal and want to delve into the old-school stuff, or for 80's thrashers wanting to get into black metal. For either of these groups, this is a near-perfect introduction, so a near-perfect score it is. Well done.
Rating: 9.5/10
