Kudos to Dangus for working hard to bring us new Baltic, and particularly Lithuanian, bands. Ugnelakis is one such band, and they sure are lucky to be backed by a label like this. Just look at the excellent job Dangus did with the tape's packaging. The production, courtesy of Porno Sound studio in Vilnius, is also quite exceptional. Music-wise Ugnelakis work their way through seven tracks of Black-Heavy metal in a fairly typical Baltic manner, combining keyboards, crunchy blackened guitars, aggressive solos (especially check out an instrumental track "Tirpsmas" for that), and a bit of folk dabbling, as on "Zemes Sauksmas" - my favorite track on this tape, which meddles folkish melodies with some nifty riffing. Overall, this stuff is not nearly up to the standards set by the likes of Poccolus or Skyforger but still a decent contribution to the Baltic metal repository and enjoyable to hear once in a while.

© 2001 boris