Black metal reviews


Buio Omega – Planet of the tombs (0.5/5) »

01. Intro 02:03
02. Spawned by the winds of the Black Death 04:27
03. Glacial Void 06:25
04. Buried by the ashes of sorrow 07:11
05. Wrecked and Destroyed 09:27
06. Planet of the Tombs 06:21
07. Centuries of Cadavers 04:25
08. Sideral Terror 05:26
09. Outro 03:27

Screams, screams and more screams. Is this all that Buio Omega can offer us? Sure they are a black metal band, but surely the music has to sound good even though it sounds like it is recorded in a slaughter house. From first listen you can clearly distinguish the musicianship from the quite frankly scary and wierd whaling vocals. I’ve heard whales that can sing better than this. So lets disect as throughly as possible this Whale of an album, to find out whats wrong with the state of its vocal box.
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Borknagar - Universal (4.5/5) »

01. Havoc 06:42
02. Reason 06:55
03. The Stir of Seasons 04:01
04. For a Thousand Years to Come 06:46
05. Abrasion Tide 07:14
06. Fleshflower 03:28
07. Worldwide 06:39
08. My Domain 04:49

Borknagar are a Progressive Black Metal band. Let’s just think about that for a moment. If you’ll allow me to dust off the ol’ stereotypewriter, then Black Metal is going to involve a lot of spiked leather garments, face-paint, and possibly marching around in a forest with a burning torch and a grim countenance. You have to go some distance from this to prog; at least one guy in your prog band has an afro, and is wearing trousers that MC Hammer would declare to be just a bit much. He’s also so high that he’s trying to play a flute with his nose, and will only end up in a forest in the event of some kind of ‘Withnail & I’ situation. So…progressive black metal? How does that work, then?

Quite simply, Borknagar just make it work. They’ve just taken most of those ingredients and mashed them together, leaving furious double bass drumming going hand in hand with Hammond organ and spoken-word intervals. If by some chance you’re actually already Borknagar’s number one fan, and I’m just condescending to you right now, it’s been four years since their last album, and that was an acoustic effort (acoustic progressive black metal…the mind boggles). So I’d imagine we could all do with a little refresher course, right?
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