Windir - Arntor, Ein Windir

black metal it is again, my love, that mysterious genre, that started from some kids saying "let's play fast and sing about satan cause it's controversial", through the guys in norway which took it seriously, but this is another kind of norway, in this record, the landscapes of norway and it's beauty are present, instead of just banging the drums and sing about satan and wintermoons, it sings about the past of the place, like old vikings.

Windir was a black\viking metal project and later band that was formed by Valfar or Terje Bakken, whatever you please, that guy was pretty much a multi-instrumentalist, playing keyboards, guitars, bass and even accordion, in Windir he wanted to express the folklore of his region, the sogndal region, which has it's own dialect for the norwegian language, within the music and the lyrics, later changed to english though, he was gaining succsess win the black metal scene and later he recruited members for a full time band, and after Valfar died from hypothermy, the band disbanded claiming that they can't continue without him, but in this review, i'll review his second album, and in my opinion his best, Arntor, Ein Windir.

Windir defined it's genre as sognametal, with it's own characters for music, but it's black metal as we like it.
first the music, it's astonishing, it takes time to understand the work that's been done here, the atmosphere is all around, and the lead guitars with the folk melodies are constant and they make things sounds more epic, the rhythm guitars are just like any other black metal band, pretty disappointing, the keyboards are just atmospheric and they make feel like you stand on a top of a fjord shouting the lyrics of the music while everyone is down listening to you, and it makes all the sounds special, the drums are just tight, they know the job, apparently Valfar wasn't good at being a drummer so he took a session drummer, and he knows the job of the black metal drumming, blast beats, double bass, and great usage of the ride bell, the singing is top notch, giving a feeling of some men choir who sing proudly, the growls are fascinating, and the mix gives them a sound like they are above all the instruments, not in volume, but in echoes and feeling,

however, you can't fall in love at once in this album, it took me time to love it, and it was in the time that metal just didn't do it for me anymore, but this album changed everything, Valfar R.I.V.

Borknagar - Borknagar

Norwegian black metal, this phenomenon in the the early 90's, which put black metal on the map for it's extreme music and notoriety in another issues, brought us some pearls in the underground music scene for the 20 years, and broke the limits within non metallic genres (Alcest for an example), albums like Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger and Ulver's Bergtatt showed us the variety and diversity of this marvelous genre, which in ulver's case, was influenced by folk music, and darkthrone on the other hand, made the most raw black metal ever made, and made new rules in the black metal scene.

the year is 1995, a young and a promising guitarist and musician Øystein Garnes Brun wanted to make black metal inspired by Viking themes, way before it was popular in the finnish area (bands like ensiferum who are nothing but crap imo), he gathered people from the Norwegian scene, and ended up to be a sort of a black metal super group, with Garm of Ulver fame on vocals. Grim of Immortal fame on drums, Infernus from gorgoroth on bass and Ivar Bjørnson on keyboards.

Borknagar made a pure blend of blasting drums, riffs, and melodic keys and epic chants which are really making the listener imagine a picture from vast fields across snowy northern Europe, garm's vocals are more developed than on Ulver's Bergttat, in the same album Garm's clean vocals were sort of gregorian chants, and frightening shrieks from the woods, on this album, Garm barely uses his clean vocals, and his growls sounds like screams of pain, and when he do uses his clean vocals, he sings with passion and power.

the guitar work is just detailed to every part, managing to get the black metal guitar sound but more melodic, and the lead guitar just tries to tell a tale instead of the lyrics, bass is audible, a rare thing in a black metal album, especially when productions like in this album are not like modern metal productions, Infernus sure knows how to use his bass and not only imitating the notes of the guitar, which is blessed, or in the black metal context, cursed ;).

Grim was a really great drummer, he was able to play all the needed techniques to make the perfect epic parts of this album, the keys are just fantastic and it seems like Ivar Bjørnson knew how to use them in specific parts, to create an atmosphere that apparently Øystein Garnes Brun to create.

though all of the music and the great work on this albums, there are two major problems that really took my attention. first of all, Garm barely uses clean vocals, and as a guy who made a masterpiece like Bergttat, should have more variety instead of his freezing shrieks, and secondly, there are too many fillers in this album which are really not necessary and it would be better if they were songs instead of fillers, a filler like Tanker mot Tind (Kvelding) would be appropriate if it were before Vintervredets Sjelsagen, and altough i'm almost sure kvelding is beginning in of those northern european languages, less fillers would make this album perfect.

Alcest - Écailles de Lune

Black metal, what does it says to you my fellow metalheads?, for most of us, black metal it's all about hate, anti society, church burnings, pagan and satanic rituals, thevasts forests with trolls and the cutest nazi of all: Varg Vikernes, but does anybody knows about the other side of black metal?, there is my answer for you black metal haters

Apparently, this genre doesn't know any limits, black metal blends with alot of non-metallic genres, Post-Rock? there's Agalloch, Neo-Folk? there's Ulver, and now, this thing came along, the genre known by the name of Shoegaze\Dream Pop, pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine (yeah sounds like emo i know) and Cocteau Twins, the main characters of the genre is using a wall of distortion, and the singing is not the main instrument here, it manages to give a sort of an atmosphere, as Alcest manages to do it as well. Alcest was formed as one man project by Neige (Peste Noire, Mortifera, Les Discrets, Amesouers, Phest, Valfunde) and the music was typical raw black metal, about winter and coldness, and even Neige's nickname can testify about the band's direction (Neige in french means snow), and in 2007 he released his debut album "Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde" which recieved positive critics not only in the metal scene, but in the Shoegaze\Dream Pop audience Neige basically changed his musical style, reaching out for metalheads and non metalheads, there were no growls in it, but it had that atmosphere that black metal has, the atmosphere of nostalgy too, remembering better days. Neige teamed up with Winterhalter on drums to bring us their next effort Écailles de Lune, after 3 years of anticipation. the album starts with the title track, the start seems promising, very promising, with a very atmospheric feeling, everytime i listen to the song it brings me up good memories, but Alcest's music could be taken to two direction, one direction of happyness and feeling good, and one direction of melancholy and sorrows, from interviews with Neige, he says that people who take his music to depressive direction don't understand his ideas, but most people do so. the music is really emotional for both sides, and even the black metal attack in the end of the first song is really melodic, the beginning of the second part of the title song just blasts my ears, with the intense drumming of Winterhalter and the freezing shrieks of neige, and when it ends, the song makes time go faster without noticing it, the next song, Percées de Lumière, is a black metal more than shoegaze song, and the song is featured in one of the splits alcest has released with les discrets (another band featuring Neige). The rest of the album features more quiet songs and more Shoegaze, but in contrast to Souvenirs, this album features more metal in it, to make the perfect balance between black metal and non metal genres.

the other songs are more Shoegaze but there is still metal in it, Neige manages again to reach both audiences, but in contrast to Souvenirs, he manages to blend more of his roots in the music, black metal

Orphaned Land - El Norra Alila (1996)

Middle East my love, the most controversial place on earth in the 21th century, where cultures collide into a huge mess, that could create chaos, or diversity that no one ever seen in Europe, in most countries in the middle east metal music is banned and if even if not, metal will be considered as a "satanic" music and will never gain succsses in the mainstream music industry, one of these bands are Orphaned Land, the most famous metal band to come out of israel, and one of the only artists in all of israel to have a huge fanbase in muslim countries.

Orphaned Land formed in the early 90's by Kobi Farhi (Vocals), Yossi Saharon (Guitars and some folk instruments), Matti Svatizky (Guitars), Uri Zilha (Bass) and Sami Bachar (Drums), and quickly gained succsses within the israeli metal scene that wasn't big at that time, releasing their debut "Sahara" in 1994, which was really awesome (my opinion plays a role here) while still being teenagers, after 2 years came the Album El Norra Alila which im going to write about, and after 8 years of wandering and not doing nothing, OL released their 3rd album "Mabool" which was a concept album the Noah's Ark and the flood story with their own personal twist about peace between the 3 big religions, and the album is considered as their best by far, and in early 2010, OL relaeased their 4th album "The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR" that is really great but takes it time to like the songs on it.

i'll start this review by saying that there will be comparisons to Sahara, and off we go.

First of all, the lyrics are one of the best i heard and read, they talk about the relationship between god and man, about the need to lean on some kind of a deity, the only way for me to relate to religion is by this album, nothing does it better than this for me.

The guitars are just tight, the riffs flow onto another riff creating a rich sound, Yossi and Matti work in layers rather than playing both the same thing, some doom-death riffs remained from Sahara, some more melodic parts and less metallic, creating the what's called "Oriental Metal" and pioneering a genre within the Folk Metal scene.
Kobi's vocals improved in the two years between the two albums, while in Sahara the vocals were mostly growls with some occasional chants and some narrating, he changed his style, singing in a middle eastern style and he sings in sort of pain and despair, which brings more interesting sounds into the the mix and the growls are more high pitched than in Sahara, not a single flaw in it.

In the rhytm section the drums are perfectly fit to the music and does the job pretty well, but the from the bass i would expect more as a fellow bassist, Uri's parts are not bad, but it would be cooler if he would had more ideas into the album.

the folk music fits to every riff, seems like the band knew where to put those instruments to make this sort of feeling, chants like in the end of "Thee By The Father I Pray" gives an epic though OL's music cannot be considered as epic like its folk metal fellows, and especially the song "Shir Hama'alot" which gives me as a born and raised jew, feelings about the holy city of Jerusalem, but the only thing that was down is the production quality, im used to stuff like Bathory but i think clearer sound will give the band a better way to understand the riffs and the musical ideas.

this album ended up as one of my favorite albums, much more than Mabool, or Sahara, i connect to my spirit as much as Agalloch can change my mood with the help of this masterpiece, and i think this album is way underrated in comparison to their others, and in live shows, the only interesting songs i want them to play are songs from El Norra Alila.

Vio-Lence - Eternal Nightmare (1988)

Thrash metal has always been one of my favorite genres, the riffs, the speed, the intensity of the shows, it's really better than every show that i've ever been to, but too bad this "golden age" of the thrash scene was gone by the 90's for some more technical, guttural and brutal music, people who hate thrash says: "it's boring and repeats itself" but well you can say the same about any Xcore band that incorporates "grooves" and breakdown, and that's how i relate this album to the Xcore and groove metal listeners.

Vio-Lence was a band from the Bay Area thrash scene (Exodus, Heathen, Testament), with Sean Killian on vocals, Rob Flynn and Phil Demmel on guitar duty (of machine head fame), Deen Dell on the bass, and Perry Strickland on the drum set, these guys were known of haveing underground succsses, and having one of the best shows in town, although the music was not the most original, Vio-Lence had kept it through its existence.

Their debut album Eternal Nightmare represents the wave of bands who were copying their friends and predecessors (as the bands mentioned above), bands like Vio-Lence never did something unique or new, they only knew to do it better than others.

the vocals are really debateable, many people that liked the paul baloff esque vocals will say Sean Killian sounds like a girl screaming, but in my opinion he's a great vocalist because he can get into ranges most people can't, yeah he sounds like a 12 year old boy, but somehow it fits the music so you can relate into his childish screams.

i can't really say anything about the guitars except for pure riffage, in my opinion Vio-Lence is the only positive thing Robb Flynn has ever contributed to music, much more than his beloved band Machine Head, the bass is not anything special on it, just copies the guitars with some parts of having some more flexibility but nothing more, the drums are good and can keep track of the speed of the music.

We can sum this album as: nothing special, not making nothing new in the 80's thrash scene, but their stuff is so good so you can mark it in the thrash classics as "Bonded By Blood", "The Legacy" and "Breaking The Silence".