Baltak
Macedonian Darkness & Evil
[Battlegod]
This is Baltak's debut album (earlier released under the name "Baltak" I think) and what an impressive debut it is. Recorded at "Baltak's State Of The Art Four Track Studios" and dedicated to Alexander the Great, this album hits you like an ironclad fist straight in the face. This is true chaos and mayhem. This band does not stand out as being original but their sheer brutality puts them far above our average black metal band. This one-man act (spearheaded by main man Gorgoroth, of Macedonian origin apparently) delivers one of the most violent and sick black metal assaults ever known to man.
The vocals are totally insane. Violent screams scattered all over the place often with no apparent purpose but the screaming itself, hard to tell what's singing and what's screaming anyway. Vocals range from very dark to more "normal" black metal vocals but more hateful and insane then most. Maximum brutality is the formula here sometimes mixed with total fucking speed. Speed is not however (which seem to be public opinion regarding less talented bands i.e. Marduk) a necessity for achieving brutality. A lot more elements in the music help achieving this. The shitty production, the sharp guitar sound and insane improvised solos act as examples of this. The bass line is inaudible but I guess it surges in the background. One interesting thing is the drumming which varies extremely in speed and most predominantly in sound over the course of the album. I read somewhere that both real drums and a drum-machine were used on this record and that would explain a lot. The drum-machine however merely adds to the violent sound of the music with its weird (lighter?) sound. The vocals too are one of the albums greater assets.
What makes this album stand out is less the originality of the compositions but more the mere execution of the material. The violence, anger, sickness and hatred on display here are truly amazing. I guess that many of you people surround yourselves with people who actually not are into black metal, like girlfriends :(, but these people can generally accept that you listen to albums with lets say Immortal and Graveland even. This album however would not work to the untrained ear and would probably cause my girlfriend "to inflict deadly blows" against me if it was playing when she came to visit.
This album is a killer, and that is not killer as in very good. It actually KILLS!
© 2001 herr nebelwerfer
The vocals are totally insane. Violent screams scattered all over the place often with no apparent purpose but the screaming itself, hard to tell what's singing and what's screaming anyway. Vocals range from very dark to more "normal" black metal vocals but more hateful and insane then most. Maximum brutality is the formula here sometimes mixed with total fucking speed. Speed is not however (which seem to be public opinion regarding less talented bands i.e. Marduk) a necessity for achieving brutality. A lot more elements in the music help achieving this. The shitty production, the sharp guitar sound and insane improvised solos act as examples of this. The bass line is inaudible but I guess it surges in the background. One interesting thing is the drumming which varies extremely in speed and most predominantly in sound over the course of the album. I read somewhere that both real drums and a drum-machine were used on this record and that would explain a lot. The drum-machine however merely adds to the violent sound of the music with its weird (lighter?) sound. The vocals too are one of the albums greater assets.
What makes this album stand out is less the originality of the compositions but more the mere execution of the material. The violence, anger, sickness and hatred on display here are truly amazing. I guess that many of you people surround yourselves with people who actually not are into black metal, like girlfriends :(, but these people can generally accept that you listen to albums with lets say Immortal and Graveland even. This album however would not work to the untrained ear and would probably cause my girlfriend "to inflict deadly blows" against me if it was playing when she came to visit.
This album is a killer, and that is not killer as in very good. It actually KILLS!
© 2001 herr nebelwerfer