Urgehal "Through Thick Fog Till Death" CD
[Southern Lord]
Traditional Norwegian black metal. You know the drill: Snarling screams, shitloads of speedy tremolo picking and blasting percussion, fairly repetitive song structures, little hints of melody but nothing fancy, etc. It's nothing special, but I've heard much worse. The songs routinely top five minutes, some more than seven or eight, so it gets pretty god damn tiresome and is way too fucking long overall... I mean, 15 tracks in 78 minutes? Shit, that's overkill. Four of the songs are live bonus tracks, but still, barring that it's still almost an hour of songs that sound pretty similar to one another. Some of the faster chord progressions have some fucked up slides and borderline technical runs that give the writing a different feel, but it's the pounding slow breaks and interestingly dirty solos that really stand out (check out "Raise the Symbols of Satan", especially). The solos are a lot different than most black metal, and have this great rugged bite going on that kind of comes off like wild hardcore/punk meets thrash metal or something. "Invasion" is a generally slower piece that harnesses that pulsing sort of black metal pacing that I always prefer when it comes to the tried and true style, and in this track even the speeds come off as more energetic and vibrant, but at more than eight minutes it does drag on a lot... I'd still tag it as a standout, though. Ironically the other really long piece, "Dead Cold December" (damn near eight minutes in length), is also really powerful, opening with a crushing chord progression that lets just the right amount of cold melodic dissonance seep in, so that even when it speeds up it retains a more moving atmosphere that really works wonders. The sound quality's a mixed bag. It's not polished by any means, but it's also not as raw as most "true" black metal. The vocals do have a little reverb happening for added atmosphere, the guitars have a little bit of a bite going on, etc. But I'm not making out much bass, and I don't care for the drum sound either. The snare and the cymbals sound alright, but the kick drums are too plunky and the percussion is overpowering in the mix. The dude unloads some sweet fills, but sometimes his playing gets slightly sloppy, though drawing from such "primitive" influences that's not a real issue at all. The live songs are listenable but the drums are way too loud and sound so fake it's ridiculous, so... they're not really worth hearing in my opinion. And the layout on this thing is absolutely fucking abysmal. I'm stunned that any label would release something looking like this. Fuck artists' control if this is the end result. The cover photo is blurry and looks stupid as hell, the band logo sucks, all of the band photos are sort of blurry and are among the silliest black metal photos I've ever seen in my life, the band members credit themselves with titles such as "666 leadstrings of hellspawn devastation and necrovoice of blasphemy", and the lyrics are astoundingly immature as well: "But still I found the power and will to rape you twice, and slit your throat, sacrifice your unpure corpse to master Satan..." This has got to be a fucking joke, right? I mean, I'm all for raw black metal, and I'm all for having a laugh, but this is fucking retarded. There's a fine line between tolerable and ridiculous, and this thing blasts way past that line and never looks back. Thankfully the music isn't bad, but man, the packaging and stuff is total shit. It's not an interesting enough album to hold my interest for an hour, but there are some cool songs, so... purists might be really into this, but if you need a little something extra from your black metal, this one might not deliver in full. If every song was as intriguing as "Dead Cold December" I'd be all over this, although... I'd still have a hard time getting over how horrid the layout is! (6/10)
Running time - 78:32, Tracks: 15
[Notable tracks: Raise the Symbols of Satan, Invasion, Dead Cold December]
Southern Lord - http://www.southernlord.com

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