Funeral Rain Press Corps

Labels: Total Holocaust Records, Moribund Records
Genre: Black Metal

Late last year this album came out on Moribund (middle of the year on Total Holocaust), and it’s a great example of pure black metal. And it’s over an hour long, which is perfect for people like me with attention spans that last in the hours, rather than minutes.
Fast guitars, a bass that’s actually present, and really good drumming with a throat shredding vocalist are combined to create this atmosphere-soaked album that is truly and properly grim. Slower sections (such as the part close to the end of “Spit In The Eye”) remind me of Earth, while a definite Darkthrone/Celtic Frost influence covers most of the rest of the album.
If you’re into the old-school sounds of the early 90′s Norwegian scene, you won’t lose by checking out these Australians.
8 out of 10.

Thrall on Facebook.
Thrall on MySpace.

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Moribund Records

You know, black metal bands like Thrall REALLY piss me off! I mean, just when I think I’ve heard everything black metal has to offer me, some completely awesome band blindsides me with something completely rad and totally different!

Away From The Haunts Of Man has A LOT going for it: some of the best screeching vocals I’ve heard in a great long while, perfect production, thick, doom encrusted drives and herky-jerky start ‘n’ stop pacing that left me with the most evil case of whiplash ever documented!

Breaking it down, you may find similarities between Thrall and the likes of Nachtmystium, Sargiest and maybe even a little Blood Stained Dusk. But not enough to say that they’re actually “borrowing” anything from their respective sounds. Thrall keeps shit real by carving out their own little niche in the black metal kingdom! One that’s sure to be duplicated in the future… but you heard it here first folks; Thrall is the real fucking deal! As original as KFC’s eleven herbs and spices!

Overall: Getitgetitgetitgetitnow!!! Sorry, exclusive Moribund release in North America only.

10/10

Thrall On MySpace
Thrall On Facebook

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Moribund Records

Finally, after news of it’s release came out back in August, Sargeist’s new album Let the Devil In is here for us reviewers and probably thieves. It’s coming on November 9 for those who buy their music legally.
Being talked about as a true form of Finnish Black Metal, in a world where the “bloated corpse of black metal is being picked apart by MySpace ‘friends’ and post-whatever posers”, Sargeist continues their attack on Christianity with classic zeal.
Shatraug’s guitar work is still as raw as hell while keeping the melodic tendencies of old school black metal. Hoath Torog’s voice just shatters all expectations by outperforming about 95% of black metal’s vocalists, becoming even better than he has on all previous Sargeist and Behexen albums. Horns, meanwhile, kicks the shit out of his drums, laying down amazing blasts, brilliant fills, and for slower songs like “Nocturnal Revelation” bringing it all down and just keeping the groove solid, all with a drum tone that is unearthly and gorgeous and still ominous.
Let the Devil In is an awesome and inspiring album of true black metal, a milestone in the genre. This will probably define what comes from Scandinavian black metal for a long time now.
Or at least until Sargeist delivers another album.
10 out of 10.

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Moribund Records

There was a little bit of a hype machine in my head for this band. I was stoked to listen to them on the pretense that they are not a standard anti-Christian band from a heavily Christian area of the world, but rather an anti-Islamic band from a heavily Islamic part of the world.
I expected a bit of a Middle East sound, perhaps some traditional instruments to make their sounds heard, but no. And this does not disappoint me at all. Ayat are crushing down some classic sounding black metal that could have come from the US or South America (it has that slightly more chaotic sound that’s not as present in most European black metal) with touches of thrash and tons of punk elements.
Vocal-wise, it’s fucking evil; and a perfect mix of black metal shrieks and blackened thrash screaming.
The fact that these guys stand a huge chance of getting murdered in their own home country for writing and recording this music doesn’t faze them at all either, and to my ears it seems to help them that much more, adding more fuel to their hatefires.
Songs of note are “Puking Under Radiant Moonlight (Followed By A Century Long Ejaculation)”, “Fornication and Murder”, and “Thousands of Pissed Motherfuckers…”.
7.5 out of 10.

Today, Moribund Records confirms November 9th, 2010 as the release date for Sargeist‘s long-awaited new album, Let the Devil In. Dedicated Moribund terrorists right from the start, Sargeist’s last full-length album was 2005′s critically acclaimed Disciple of the Heinous Path, preceded by their classic Satanic Black Devotion debut in 2003. Featuring vocalist Torog and drummer Horns of cult Finnish horde Behexen as well as the six-string sorcery of Horna mastermind Shatraug, here on their third album Sargeist display that black metalled orthodoxy need not spell creative death, that occult mysticism is still ripe for exploration if the words match the deeds – and especially if you have the songs to back them up. One anthem to the horned one after another, Let the Devil In masterfully balances raw, bloodcurdling passion with poised, steely-eyed professionalism: a new classic of traditional black metal is born!

Says Shatraug regarding the imminent release of Let the Devil In, “The forthcoming Sargeist album took us more than five years to make. After two albums, the standard we had raised was needed to be met with a liturgy surpassing the previous works, and for that reason alone, it took such a long time to complete the new work. Finally, when everything started to fall in place, it didn’t take long. Lyrically, Let the Devil In is a continuation of the heinous path we had chosen – that of black magic, necromancy, and worship of Satan. The result is definitely the strongest of Sargeist yet, taking all the assets of our past with a new Satanic illumination.”

Also watch for a split 7″ from Sargeist and Drowning The Light, out on Moribund Records, September 29.

Tracklisting:
I – Empire of Suffering
II – A Spell to Awaken the Temple
III – From the Black Coffin Lair
IV – Burning Voice of Adoration
V – Nocturnal Revelation
VI – Discovering the Enshrouded Eye
VII – Let the Devil In
VIII – Sanguine Rituals
IX – Twilight Breath of Satan
X – As Darkness Tears the World Apart