Various Artists
A.B.M.S. compilation – Norici Obscura Pars
[Dark Matter]
This compilation of the Austrian Black Metal Syndicate seems to be another
rarity, since it was quite a bitch to find even when Dark Matter Recs. was still
well up and running… and now (1999 a.y.p.s.) you can’t even find their
best-selling releases such as Golden Dawn’s ”Art of Dreaming” or Pazuzu’s
”Awaken the Dragon”.
This is my favorite compilation album ever, possibly related to the fact that almost every release from the Austrian Abigor/Summoning/black metal/darkwave scene has been close to my heart. Overall, this is a very solid compilation with only a couple of mediocre tracks out of 11, the others very well above average, some excellent and unique. Most of the stuff has been produced professionally and the quality of the material on the CD makes it a complete journey through twilight landscapes from beginning to end, which does not happen often with compilations.
The bands represented here are Golden Dawn, Pervertum, Trifixion, Pazuzu, Knechte des Schreckens and Vuzem, all of them with two tracks except Pazuzu with one track.
For those who know Golden Dawn’s first (and at the moment only) full-length, can expect more of the same from these tracks, ”Way of the Sorcerer” and ”Enigma”, with a hint of undevelopedness and lack of flair here. Those who are not familiar with ”Art of Dreaming”, Golden Dawn performs advanced black metal with some of the most stellar synth orchestration and atmospheres in metal alongside Bal-Sagoth and Limbonic Art, backed up by a furious and energetical touch to the metal. Dreamlord is a talented musician without question.
Pervertum is a more basic black metal band who released at least one album on Lethal Records. Their songs have a powerful sense of rhythm and building of dramaticism with straight-forward melody and the frog-like vocals. Pervertum do not sound astounding, at least not at first listen, but they have a consistency to them that makes me go back to their material time and again. One of the tracks presented here, ”Prometheus”, based on the satanik poem by Goethe, is the most powerful Pervertum track I have heard.
Trifixion plays primitive and sickly humorous rocking black metal with violent anti-christian and occult themes, no respect for musicality and a very METAL edge to what he is doing. One of the tracks, ”Armour Geddon” is a real personal favorite for me with the wild crust drumming. The other, ”Cry from Dimensions”, is not totally bad but the utilization of the weirdly light and expectant main riff is left half way and it is the track on this compilation I find least worthy.
Knechte des Schreckens was the band of Pervertum guitarist Necros and Pazuzu. The two tracks here are melody-based simple black metal songs, played in tempo and somewhat atmospheric, but it is understandable that they chose not to continue this project further. It suffers from a lack of anything to contribute to black metal.
Pazuzu’s track, ”The First Dominion – Renewal of Ages” is a 10 minutes long synth piece with his demonic growled and powerfully declared vocals taking all attention from the very simple arrangements and compositions with the keyboards that have been extended to last 10 minutes, in a way that if the lyrics were a bit less captivating, the track would be horrendously boring and stupid. But the emphasis has been put on the lyrics and they work very well here, a declaration of war against light and summons of the satanik armies to the battle for dominion.
Vuzem was the highlight of this compilation for me. A project of Pungent Stench’s main man Martin Schirenc, it did not release any more material than these two compilation tracks. The same formation continued to release an album on Napalm Records as Hollenthon, but the two projects should not be equalized because of obvious artistical differences. The first track, ”Von Denen Bluthsaugern” is aggressive vampire dramaticism, reminiscent (if not blatantly rip-off) of early Cradle of Filth, but it does not even begin to hint what to expect from the last track of the compilation, the 18-minute-long ”Invocation”. ”Invocation” progresses through cosmic ambience, monk chant samples, speech in Russian, Spanish and English about ”no-man’s land”, esotericism, mid-paced dramatic powerful black metal scream opera, keyboards blasting pieces of orchestration like fireworks to the skies in satanik frenzy… it’s insane.
This is a compilation album for the gods!
© 1999 black hate
This is my favorite compilation album ever, possibly related to the fact that almost every release from the Austrian Abigor/Summoning/black metal/darkwave scene has been close to my heart. Overall, this is a very solid compilation with only a couple of mediocre tracks out of 11, the others very well above average, some excellent and unique. Most of the stuff has been produced professionally and the quality of the material on the CD makes it a complete journey through twilight landscapes from beginning to end, which does not happen often with compilations.
The bands represented here are Golden Dawn, Pervertum, Trifixion, Pazuzu, Knechte des Schreckens and Vuzem, all of them with two tracks except Pazuzu with one track.
For those who know Golden Dawn’s first (and at the moment only) full-length, can expect more of the same from these tracks, ”Way of the Sorcerer” and ”Enigma”, with a hint of undevelopedness and lack of flair here. Those who are not familiar with ”Art of Dreaming”, Golden Dawn performs advanced black metal with some of the most stellar synth orchestration and atmospheres in metal alongside Bal-Sagoth and Limbonic Art, backed up by a furious and energetical touch to the metal. Dreamlord is a talented musician without question.
Pervertum is a more basic black metal band who released at least one album on Lethal Records. Their songs have a powerful sense of rhythm and building of dramaticism with straight-forward melody and the frog-like vocals. Pervertum do not sound astounding, at least not at first listen, but they have a consistency to them that makes me go back to their material time and again. One of the tracks presented here, ”Prometheus”, based on the satanik poem by Goethe, is the most powerful Pervertum track I have heard.
Trifixion plays primitive and sickly humorous rocking black metal with violent anti-christian and occult themes, no respect for musicality and a very METAL edge to what he is doing. One of the tracks, ”Armour Geddon” is a real personal favorite for me with the wild crust drumming. The other, ”Cry from Dimensions”, is not totally bad but the utilization of the weirdly light and expectant main riff is left half way and it is the track on this compilation I find least worthy.
Knechte des Schreckens was the band of Pervertum guitarist Necros and Pazuzu. The two tracks here are melody-based simple black metal songs, played in tempo and somewhat atmospheric, but it is understandable that they chose not to continue this project further. It suffers from a lack of anything to contribute to black metal.
Pazuzu’s track, ”The First Dominion – Renewal of Ages” is a 10 minutes long synth piece with his demonic growled and powerfully declared vocals taking all attention from the very simple arrangements and compositions with the keyboards that have been extended to last 10 minutes, in a way that if the lyrics were a bit less captivating, the track would be horrendously boring and stupid. But the emphasis has been put on the lyrics and they work very well here, a declaration of war against light and summons of the satanik armies to the battle for dominion.
Vuzem was the highlight of this compilation for me. A project of Pungent Stench’s main man Martin Schirenc, it did not release any more material than these two compilation tracks. The same formation continued to release an album on Napalm Records as Hollenthon, but the two projects should not be equalized because of obvious artistical differences. The first track, ”Von Denen Bluthsaugern” is aggressive vampire dramaticism, reminiscent (if not blatantly rip-off) of early Cradle of Filth, but it does not even begin to hint what to expect from the last track of the compilation, the 18-minute-long ”Invocation”. ”Invocation” progresses through cosmic ambience, monk chant samples, speech in Russian, Spanish and English about ”no-man’s land”, esotericism, mid-paced dramatic powerful black metal scream opera, keyboards blasting pieces of orchestration like fireworks to the skies in satanik frenzy… it’s insane.
This is a compilation album for the gods!
© 1999 black hate