Temnozor
Sorcery is Strengthening the Black Glory of Rus
[Stellar Winter]
Temnozor is the most highly acclaimed band from Russia’s underground Black Metal
Brotherhood. Overall, this cassette album shows a very convincing, proficient
and deeply serious face to their world of paganism, extreme politics and
anti-christian terrorism.
The nationalistic spirit is obvious from the sleeve where almost everything is printed in Russian, from the mythological cover picture and the dominating folk parts in the music. It would not suffice to call it folk-influenced, because this is rather Isengard than Graveland in it’s method.
The sounds are very well produced for an underground band, even bass is clearly audible, each instrument keeping it’s place in the mix beside the others, nothing dominating. Vocals are quite loud, but that feels natural since they are well executed in both the screaming and the clean-sung way. The clean vocals are the best ”pagan folk” vocals I have heard besides Isengard’s ”Vinterskugge”.
There is no drunkenness and no neo-viking-posing to them, the singer is singing the song with feeling, spirit and awareness and that’s it. Flute is used in some songs up front as an instrument taking the lead in melody. There is variation also in the way it is used; it is not left to the level of only playing catchy tunes along with the guitar, but rather works it’s own way through the mood.
The level of inspiration here is epic and it is not possible to write an adequate ”review” of it and it must be heard. This work is based on something immense and it also reflects from the album that it does not say everything that it has to say and does not impress upon the listeners all that the musicians have intended with it. The style of the music flows in a compressed way from introverted angst black metal to catchy countryside folk metal to hateful NS rally to acoustic/ambient interlude. This band could be better with either more concentration, or maybe it would suffice to lengthen their songs a bit and give attention to the structure, so that the flow would be more effective.
© 1999 black hate
The nationalistic spirit is obvious from the sleeve where almost everything is printed in Russian, from the mythological cover picture and the dominating folk parts in the music. It would not suffice to call it folk-influenced, because this is rather Isengard than Graveland in it’s method.
The sounds are very well produced for an underground band, even bass is clearly audible, each instrument keeping it’s place in the mix beside the others, nothing dominating. Vocals are quite loud, but that feels natural since they are well executed in both the screaming and the clean-sung way. The clean vocals are the best ”pagan folk” vocals I have heard besides Isengard’s ”Vinterskugge”.
There is no drunkenness and no neo-viking-posing to them, the singer is singing the song with feeling, spirit and awareness and that’s it. Flute is used in some songs up front as an instrument taking the lead in melody. There is variation also in the way it is used; it is not left to the level of only playing catchy tunes along with the guitar, but rather works it’s own way through the mood.
The level of inspiration here is epic and it is not possible to write an adequate ”review” of it and it must be heard. This work is based on something immense and it also reflects from the album that it does not say everything that it has to say and does not impress upon the listeners all that the musicians have intended with it. The style of the music flows in a compressed way from introverted angst black metal to catchy countryside folk metal to hateful NS rally to acoustic/ambient interlude. This band could be better with either more concentration, or maybe it would suffice to lengthen their songs a bit and give attention to the structure, so that the flow would be more effective.
© 1999 black hate