I can appreciate when a band commits fully to their love of the devil. Metal wouldn't be where it is today without inspiration from the dark lord and if you had to pick a side this one is obviously more conducive to sludgy, rumbling distortion of Orange County, California'sMDK. The sleeve is an important marker for where to begin with these guys, and they've taken a cover straight from Heavy Metal Magazine with some past or future barbarians having just conquered something. We really have to thank the Norwegians for combining the devil and metal with Vikings and medieval times - in retrospect it makes perfect sense.
And if you're going to listen to the sludgy doom of "Widowmaker's Revenge" theres no reason it can't be on the thin static medium of a flexi disc. This starts out with a great quote from something I can't quite place, something about vampires and feeding, you know, blood basically. I like the vocal effect here, it's not the growly incomprehensible guttural howl of most of this sort of thing. One of the duo, Digger or Mike, isn't afraid of massive echo with a weird cavernous distance. The instrumentation is separated into planes but the guitars bleed through everything, across all channels, extremely creepy. They take the time to build this creeping momentum and keep everything pretty accessible without having to study lyric sheets.
I still can't get over the AM radio quality of the next track, "The Moonmaiden". Is it the recording or the flexi, it's hard to decide which. Slow and grindy again, letting the distortion ring out, the choppy waves have time to echo and settle. Great vocal again, with echo and delay, a giant sound to it, very theatrical and extra evil, makes me wish they could match the thickness in the guitar sound, but maybe it's this format again. Droning almost stoner metal like dysrhythmia they can get complex and also settle into measures delivered as slow as possible without collapsing and then return for a little speed. Crazy phasered laser sounding solo reminding me of The Fucking Champs swirling all over the place.
More samples of a guy almost describing the sleeve of this record opens "Wrath of Satan" the fastest one yet, still buried under mattresses with a more extreme vocal, creaking and groaning but proving they've got the speed, with church bells. Classic. Awesome horror samples on this. Just in time for the end of this month. Perfect.
Get this blue square one sided flexi from Resurrection Records.
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