Tag Archives: Svart Records

Album Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Genre

Winter – Into Darkness (Album Review)

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Winter – Into Darkness (Future Shock – 1990)

Released in 1990, when you’d expect a mix of influences like Hellhammer and Discharge to result in something akin to Napalm Death, New York’s Winter came up with something much bleaker and much slower. Into Darkness, their debut, shares a crusty, noisy, sense of protest with Napalm Death but rather than delivering it with blasting speed, Winter grind out an apocalyptically desolate combination of guttural death and turgid doom metal. It met with complete indifference on its original release and drummer and label problems meant the band called it a day soon after. But Into Darkness’ stature as a timeless mushroom cloud of misery has rightly grown over the years. An absolutely essential, boundary-pushing record.

2020 Svart Records reissue with the Eternal Frost EP bonus disc
Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

Warning – Footprints (Song Review)

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“Here I am wide open”

Warning: listening to Footprints may induce melancholia. Emotive performances always go well with the ponderous spaces and tempos of doom metal but UK’s Warning take it to an unusually sad and vulnerable level on this sublime track from 2006’s Watching From A Distance. In fact, Footprints is more in the Anathema/Marillion zone of hearfelt, emotional catharsis. I’m too much of a satanic viking to get on board with the wallowing, introspective lyrics but the staggering combination of lurching low end, beautiful ringing chords and Patrick Walker’s distinctive, wistful vocals doesn’t half hit me right in the feels.

Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

Reverend Bizarre – Burn In Hell! (Song Review)

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“An apostle of all misery”

Gather and give praise at the Holy Parish of True Doom. Here’s Reverend Bizarre and Burn In Hell!, the opening track from their 2002 debut In The Rectory Of The Bizarre Reverend. This is doom at its most pious and humongous: pushing the style to its saturnine and elephantine limits while staying true to the traditional form and vibe of genre pioneers like Saint Vitus and Pentagram. The eight-minute song only has about three riffs but a shift in mood from minor to phrygian keeps things evil and interesting and Albert Witchfinder’s operatic, admonishing croon and the grim Conan-esque atmosphere imbue the song with all the atmosphere and emotion necessary in a timeless doom classic. Which Burn In Hell! absolutely is.

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Doom Metal, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Demon Head – Hellfire Ocean Void (Album Review)

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Demon Head – Hellfire Ocean Void (Released 22nd Feb 2019)

Remember when bands used to “get it together in the country”? Demon Head do. In the winter of 2017-18 they headed out to a remote recording studio in the Danish countryside to record their third album. But this is no bucolic, hippy, communing with nature type affair. More a “getting lost in the woods, people with strange animal masks, ‘it’s time for your appointment with The Wicker Danzig’” situation. The creepy rural seclusion approach has worked: Demon Head have definitely got it together on Hellfire Ocean Void.

The Night Is Yours and In The Hour Of The Wolf are the standout tracks: occult, old-fashioned metal that will appeal to fans of Tribulation and In Solitude. There are also lots of rustic interludes and mystical ambience which, combined with the band’s Pentagram-style proto-doom, gives the album a folk horror allure. The guitar work is much improved, some exciting NWOBHM-esque workouts and solos here, and Ferriera Larsen is finding his own voice: shaking off the Bobby Leibling/Fonzig comparisons of old.

As with previous albums, there’s a tendency to meander which means it takes a few listens to grab you. But it’s their most thoughtful, consistent and well-crafted effort yet with depth and atmosphere in abundance. It builds on the promise of their earlier work and suggests exciting ways forward. Fan of pagan, old-school metal? It’s time for your appointment with Demon Head.