Various Artists
Under the Pagan Moon
[Cyclonic]


This is Cyclonic Distribution and Productions new black metal compilation, and contains an impressive 14 tracks and 73 (!) minutes of music. Sadly, only a few of the songs are even listenable to (the first track by a band called Malkuth is beyond horrid), and these are the tracks I'm going to look at. Profanum from Poland appear on track 6, and create one of the finer, atmospheric tracks I've heard in a long-time. This song (The serpent crown) contains no guitars, simply synth, bass,solid rasped vocals and some minor drumming. I liked this track so much, I've since purchased the Profanum album-and it also does not disappoint. Secondly, an up and coming band (who have been doing mass promotion via the underground) from Finland by the name of Crimson Midwinter produce the track "Us mere mortals". This is fairly appealing black metal-fast, technical, good deeper screamed vocals, and some nice synth parts. I won't be surprised if this lot are picked up by a label real soon. Besides that, the rest of the tracks are not only pathetic but embarrassing in some cases. Ragnarok (the U.K band, not Norwegian) spew forth a horrible seemingly Cradle of Filth rip-off song (which does NOT work), and the mass of Brazilian and Israeli bands (5 in total from these countries) attempts at creating decent tracks fail miserably. This comp would be a decent addition to any collection, since it does give a feel for what is occurring in the deep underground, but for the most part does not worthy itself too many listens.

You can contact Cyclonic at:
C.D.P
P.O Box 28083
London, Ontario
N6H 5E1 CANADA


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