Necromantia - Scarlet Evil Witching Black (1995)

Good lord, I fucking love this album. Necromantia is a black metal band, often put in the forefront of the talks of Hellenic Black Metal, and I can understand why. "Scarlet Evil Witching Black" is one of those monumental albums that people should know more about, but simply don't. Ever since I discovered this album, It has been played non-stop!

Necromantia is essentially two guys, "The Magus" (as he's simply called now) handling the 4 stringed bass and vocals, and "Baron Blood" on the 8 string bass. Together, they along with session musicians crank out some of the warmest black metal that'd melt Dissection and Immortal and drown the world. The "whole, yet jagged sound" of the basses shouldn't work, but it does. The melodies and riffs that come out of the instruments have a rough twang and an otherworldly hypnotic feel to them. Songs like "Devilskin", "Pretender To The Throne (Opus 1)", and "Scarlet Witching Dreams" highlight this quality extremely well.

But this album isn't just a one-trick pony with its' rugged 12 string sonic fury. An actual guitar appears here and there, contributing only solos. While you could say the solos "dot the i's", the synths which are prominent throughout, "cross the t's." Both are qualities that enhance the music, giving each song a unique identity. Oh yeah, there is also a saxophone appearance in the fourth track, "The Arcane Light of Hecate." Don't worry though, it doesn't turn into a pretentious jazzy wankfest. The band keeps to their sound and resumes through the album.

The album as a whole is nothing less than stellar. From the furious opener "Devilskin" to the somber closer, and my personal favorite, "Spiritdance", Necromantia dug themselves a hole that they could never equal. If you're looking to explore the Greek Black Metal scene, or any Black Metal in general, you'd be in the wrong not tocheck this album out! It is a true masterpiece, and testament to the mysticism of Hellenic Black Metal!

Observe and Worship!

Morbid Scream - The Signal to Attack 1986-1990 (2007)

MORBID SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM.
This is pretty much a compilation of their demos, and a few live recording.
Morbid Scream was a kvlt death/thrash band. They were active from 1986-1990, til they changed their name to The Morbid and released one more demo.
Anyway, this is pretty much death/thrash goodness, it has some pretty memorable riffs and the vocals really stand out. They're like some sort of proto-growl/yell.

Tracks 1 & 2: From Demo I (1987)
Tracks 3 - 6: From Demo II (1988)
Track 7: Unreleased Studio Track
Tracks 8 - 12: Live 11/11/87
Tracks 13 - 15: Live 6/3/88
Tracks 16 - 19: Live 10/28/88

-funeralmass

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?kwznyimmmjt

Demolition Hammer - Tortured Existence (1990)

This one is a classic, so some of you probably know it. This is heavy as fuck death/thrash, with an emphasis on the thrash. They also have some of the best lyrics, haha.
Not much I can say about this one, you'll just have to check it out yourself.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?cm4ofzyw4wc

-funeralmass

Runemagick - The Supreme Force of Eternity (1998)

Genre - Death Metal
Reviews - The year 1998 and the strange reincarnation of death metal in this year will never cease to amaze me. We witnessed the decline of death metal which started in 1993 and was almost completed by 1996. There is no denying the fact that there were masterpieces in each year but definitely the number of quality releases had certainly taken a back seat. But come 1998 and out of nowhere we have so many awesome releases. The Chasm's "Deathcult for Eternity", Incantation's "Diabolical Conquest" to name a few. But one often tends to forget this immensely underrated band Runemagick who gave us with one of the most towering death metal record with this album.

Sweden has produced one of the greatest death metal records way back in early 90s and of course inspired by the acts in their own country and few from the US death metal scene, Runemagick was formed in early 90s. They released few demos before finally finding a label and they released this album under Century Records. While their early demos were more in the vein of Bathory they developed this more mature death metal sound with this album. Most of the songs were recorded in early 90s but the album was recorded in 1998. My encounter and appreciation of Runemagick was very strange. Obviously this album is pretty well known among the underground death metal fans, I listened to them last year and I wasn't able to appreciate it. But I decided to spin this album one more time before discarding it from my ipod, and obviously I was in for a surprise. I instantly opened the archives page and was amazed to find 10 full-lengths and 5 EPs within a span of 10 years. While this may be a very common thing for some dark ambient or drone bands but this is death metal goddamn it! I have already listened to it multiple times while I am submitting this review and thanks to the internet that I found most of their releases.

Enough of beating about the bush, let's get down to business. The album begins with a slow doomy riff only to be replaced by double bass pounding to be replaced by another set of riffs. This practically goes on throughout the album. The typical "double bass-Cymbal hits-Drum roll-double bass" pattern on the first track will force even a paralyzed guy to bang his head. This album shows you how death metal can be awesome without being insanely fast. There are appropriate representation of faster brutal parts with slow mid-paced and doomy sections. It does well to keep the listener interested throughout.

We have good amount of Bolt Thrower worship going on here. While the band doesn't mention Bolt Thrower as their influence. But the music here is pretty similar to what we hear in "The IVth Crusade". By that I certainly don't mean that they have tried to rip off Bolt Thrower, that's just to give you an idea what to expect from this album. This album has in it something for fans of all sub-genres of death metal. Add to that brilliant production values which tends to turn off many fans. Every instrument is represented well and sounds crystal with pretty heavy bass lines. The vocals need a special mention here. They are deep growling in the style of John Tardy or Karl Willetts and are pretty much decipherable. That makes the listening experience even better 'cause you can actually headbang and growl along! The lyrics are short and well written. And when the vocalist goes like ...

"When death is the key
I spread my wings

When death is the key
I open the gate
I spread my wings
And let my soul free"

on the song "When Death is the Key" you can't help but headbang and this is the best moment on the album.

"Heavy as fuck" would be such an understatement for them. While their riffs are pretty reminiscent of early Scandinavian death metal acts but while they switch to the mid-paced sections they often switch to sabbathish and sludgy riffing.

Highlights - At The Horizons End, When Death Is The Key, The Supreme Force.

Get It Here

Nirvana 2002 (swe) - Disembodied Spirits (1990)

Genre - Old School Death Metal
Ratings - 97/100
Reviews -
Nirvana 2002 is another one of the forgotten Swedish death metal legend that one often overlooks while talking about old school death metal scene. For some unforeseen reasons the band could never come up with an entire full length but before quitting they left us with few songs of such skull crushing brutality that were set to become a cult in the underground death metal scene. In 1988, Eric and Orvar came together and decided to form a band. They came up with ideas and ended up releasing a few demo tapes. Few of them like Truth and Beauty and Excursions in 2002 became very famous among the underground fans. Both of them were independently released and hence the production was arguably poor but one could not overlook the musical talents of these maniacs and the labels started to take interests in them. Consequently one of their tracks appeared on the famous split consisting of Appendix, Authorize and Fallen Angel and Nirvana 2002 themselves. Finally they got to release their most famous work Disembodied Spirits under CBR records.

I firmly believe that this is the best EP I have ever heard in metal let alone death metal. Everything is just about perfect on the three tracks on this EP.There are no fillers, no cheesy moments, everything is just class.

The EP begins with the song Slumber which kicks off with a muddy chaotic riff followed by a solo only to make way for inhuman growls of Orvar Safstrom who goes like :

"Guilty
The seal has been broken the last door is shut
Ashes
Whirling in the slumbering dephts
A pale gleaming
The last lantern in the darkness to come
Rising from the veils of slumber
To reap the dark souls and bring blessing to some."

That sure turns out to be a blessing for the listener. Orvar may not be one of the best in the busines as far as death metal vcals are concerned, he may not be gifted with satan like voice box to be throwing evil growls like Jimmy Karlsson or Greg Chandler but he manages to create a brutal atmosphere with his vocals. He uses his inhaled breath sounds on mike to perfection. The best example can be seen on the song The Awakening Of... when he screams "Time To Die". That is certainly my favorite moment on the entire EP. Slumber is full of riffs after riffs and invaded by a few solos in between, that come as a pleasant surprise, with drum rolls and blastbeats thrown aptly at places. This song is orgasmic. The Zombieification and The Awakening of arent without great moments too. The drum intro of Zombieifiecation, solos on The Awakenings of.. are perfect examples of that. No matter how much I praise Orvar and Lars on guitars and drums, I still wouldn't be doing them justice. The excellent use and perfect timing of drum rolls on toms, drum fills on high-hats and cymbals and blastbeats just make him stand apart from the usual blastbeat predominant drummers of early 90s Scandinavian death metal bands.

Apart from the near flawless metal assault of these stalwarts, the production value is another one of the reasons why I chose this EP over any other. The guitar sound is well produced and never sounds buried under the sound of the bass drum which is often one of the frequently encountered problems with demos and EPs of early 90s death metal bands otherwise. The production of drums is phenomenal too. The snareshots pound directly on your ears and the bass drums are just loud enough to be heard clearly. The bass guitar does sound a bit subdued compared to the the others but I guess you wouldnt mind that.

Before you start to wonder "Why not a perfect 100 despite such mouthful of praise?" Well may be because the EP seems too short to me and the bass guitar production could have been better.

Oh, and by the way, I have not had the pleasure to own anything original by the band. There were news in 2007 that the band might start working again together when they played live for the last time in a gig. There have been talks of the release of their entire material as a compilation. I for one sure if going to buy because that will be like a diamond in my collection. So, watch out !!
JUST FUCKIN BUY THIS whenever its released as compilation.

Download (Mediafire)