Asguard "Wikka" CD
[This Dark Reign]
This band hails from Belarus and plays around a base of thrash metal that takes cues from classic 80's metal given a modern facelift with a melodic Swedish tinge in the form of some tremolo picking runs, harmonies, and snarling vocals.  The songwriting seems okay, but it's not all that interesting, and the recording is really weak, so I'm just not into it.  There are some cool little melodies at times where they layer a lot of different parts together quite well (including some slick melodic basslines), and I like some of the clean/acoustic passages, but it all sounds kind of like a demo to me.  The drums sound entirely programmed (a live drummer is credited, however), the guitar tone has that irritating bite to it that sounds like it was recorded direct, and the mix is a little hollow and unbalanced.  The bass tone is fairly good and the vocals are effective for the most part, but that damn drum sound is inexcusable and the guitars are pretty powerless as well.  It's just too rugged and lacks any natural warmth.  I think this is a re-release of recordings made in 1999 with some bonus tracks tacked on.  The first five tracks make up the "Wikka" EP, with the next three tunes coming from a 2003 recording session that includes a cover of Judas Priest's "Leather Rebel" (which happens to be one of my favorite Priest songs of all time).  The sessions for these tracks sound a little more fluid, but the mix is way unbalanced with the vocals up front and the guitars panned off in the distance with some significant tuning discrepancies making for a rough listen.  The last track is from the band's 1998 demo, "In the Darkness of the Night", but the tracklist is all fucked up.  The cover song is supposed to be the eighth track but it's actually the ninth song on the CD, and then there are a handful of additional bonus tracks at the end of the disc that aren't even listed!?  Maybe it's the entire demo, I don't know.  The sound is somewhere in between the 1999 and 2003 sessions: Distant, cold, lacking force, and with some of the worst drum sounds ever.  I can't imagine a live drum set (if it actually is a live drum set) sounding so mechanical.  Visually everything looks nice and consistent and uses spatters of blood over high contrast images of trees with a few band photos and the lyrics strewn amongst it all.  The lyrics don't really do anything for me one way or the other.  Part of that's due to the language barrier, but the subject matter isn't all that clear and just leaves me disinterested.  This is sort of a clusterfuck of a release.  The bottom line is that the band has some talent for writing songs based around a thrashy core of traditional metal with melodic death metal modernisms, but the performances and recordings don't exactly do them any favors here.  And I'm quite annoyed by the lack of attention to detail as far as the errors on the tracklist, the unlisted songs that aren't accounted for, etc.  It's simply not a very strong CD in the first place, but the confusion surrounding the whole package only further hinders its overall quality.  With a stronger recording and tighter performances I could imagine this band faring better from my perspective, but this is one of those releases where I'm not entirely sure why it was even put together in the first place. (4/10)
Running time - 60:55, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: no one track in particular stands out to me]
This Dark Reign Recordings - http://www.devildollrecords.com

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