Following last year's masterful debut album, Der Wald zwischen den Welten, GRANITADER continue to storm the ramparts with the three-song / 16-minute Schlachtenklang. Short but most definitely sweet, this new EP is absolutely bursting at the seams with triumph and urgency; any longer and the listener might have a heart attack! Whereas that celebrated first full-length showed the Germans' masterful grasp of songwriting and dynamics - and plenty of confidence and charisma to spare - here do GRANITADER light a fire under their pagan black metal, swarming from every direction with swords-aloft bloodlust and righteous bravado. Comparisons to the likes of Windur, Falkenbach, or fellow Teutonic horde Horn are still valid, but daresay do none of them whip forth such a life-affirming fury quite like Schlachtenklang, and the incorporation of occasional deathly vocals is a welcome development. Old souls who exude the effervescence of the new, GRANITADER continue their ascent to the top of the pagan pack with Schlachtenklang!
Completed by a plausibly professional production that doesn't negate the raw grit of emotion, NACHTIG's Eisig' Romantik is bound to be the year's saddest black metal record - and one of the most engrossing.
The work of one selfsame Häxär, concurrently of Ernte, HÄXÄR are a lone torch of Swiss black metal. Now, after two albums in as many years, HÄXÄR present their third album of turn-of-the-millennium nastiness: Teufelskult.
Across the album's 41 minute (fantastical) landscape are spread lyrics of splendorous mythology, swords & sorcery, vast forgotten realms brought to life through wily, wanderlusting black metal betraying a noble melodicism
HELL MILITIA, an assemblage of the vilest and most depraved individuals the French underground has spawned who have earned themselves a bad reputation by participating in among others MÜTIILATION, ARKHON INFAUSTUS and TEMPLE OF BAAL burst onto the scene with their first full length in 2005. Preceded only by an appearance on a split 7 inch and a demo, the aptly titled Canonisation of the Foul Spirit was unleashed to wreak havoc and soil anything pure and holy in utter contempt.