Nargaroth
Fuck Off Nowadays Black Metal
[Independent]
Other than Herbstleyd (one of the most misanthropic, hateful, atmospheric and introspective releases since the early Graveland recordings), this and the instrumental Orke demo are the only Nargaroth material that I really enjoy. To be perfectly honest I thought the covers on Black Metal ist Krieg were better than Kanwulf's original creations, and Amarok only minutely captures the underlying and hypnotic ambient essence that the conceptual first full-length did. Not only that, but almost all of the songs on this 333-restricted cassette appear in modified versions on the three albums, and the only ones which didn't become inferior versions of their former selves are the Herbstleyd ones. Despite the absence of Butcher's colossal drumming, the rawer and more intense production of the tape comes across as much more effective.
At the beginning of each song Kanwulf tends to almost ritualistically gurgle and spew some indistinguishable wall of noise, and despite being almost fluent in German, I can barely separate anything from the static. "Black Metal ist Krieg" itself is the opener and the edition here is so much more vile and evil sounding than the later one that I often feel compelled to skip it on the actual album (although I never really do, because I guess I'm one of those people that feels obligated to listen to everything straight through, as it was intended). Songs two and four would be "Karmageddon" and "Herbstleyd," and as mentioned before, these are really the only tracks off the cassette that I found preferable in their altered states. Chopping the two in half is "Tod den Feinden," and this is a scorchingly fast and simply immense coarse song which feels somewhat indifferent to much of the Nargaroth style but is good nonetheless.
Onto side B - "Possessed by Black Fucking Metal" is absolutely inspiring here, in all of its organic and natural spirit, and it catalyzes directly into the trance-inducing "Shall we Begin" from Amarok, which despite being excellent on the album is unbelievable in the unrefined format. Around this point, everything becomes sort of obscure; Kanwulf directs a psychotic attack on a completely worthless label with "Fuck Off Last Episode," and basically makes use of the title as a chorus line as he screams the words endlessly in a completely blistering environment. Awesome, I'd say - most everyone knows my feelings on them (cheers to Sharund on a heap of great reviews by the way) and this is completely energetic with its conviction. More people need to know that German black metal has not been overrun by those Christian losers.
The "outro" to Fuck Off Nowadays Black Metal is none other than an instrumental version of Mötorhead's Orgasmatron (I hope most realized that classic!). However, in his quest to become the world's most elite black metaller Kanwulf fitted every odd version of the tape with an extra track: "A Black Metal Song, just for Black Metal Maniacs." It's quite good actually, and extremely monotonous. More amazing yet however is the fact that each of the 100 limited LP versions of this contains a small piece of the master tape, as if Kanwulf might somehow expect everyone owning it to unite hands and combine them. Bizarre.
One final thing, which has nothing to do with the recording nor does it matter, but just for curiosity's sake: Did Wolf from Absurd beat the fuck out of Kanwulf, or vice versa? Conflicting viewpoints...
© 2002 hando
At the beginning of each song Kanwulf tends to almost ritualistically gurgle and spew some indistinguishable wall of noise, and despite being almost fluent in German, I can barely separate anything from the static. "Black Metal ist Krieg" itself is the opener and the edition here is so much more vile and evil sounding than the later one that I often feel compelled to skip it on the actual album (although I never really do, because I guess I'm one of those people that feels obligated to listen to everything straight through, as it was intended). Songs two and four would be "Karmageddon" and "Herbstleyd," and as mentioned before, these are really the only tracks off the cassette that I found preferable in their altered states. Chopping the two in half is "Tod den Feinden," and this is a scorchingly fast and simply immense coarse song which feels somewhat indifferent to much of the Nargaroth style but is good nonetheless.
Onto side B - "Possessed by Black Fucking Metal" is absolutely inspiring here, in all of its organic and natural spirit, and it catalyzes directly into the trance-inducing "Shall we Begin" from Amarok, which despite being excellent on the album is unbelievable in the unrefined format. Around this point, everything becomes sort of obscure; Kanwulf directs a psychotic attack on a completely worthless label with "Fuck Off Last Episode," and basically makes use of the title as a chorus line as he screams the words endlessly in a completely blistering environment. Awesome, I'd say - most everyone knows my feelings on them (cheers to Sharund on a heap of great reviews by the way) and this is completely energetic with its conviction. More people need to know that German black metal has not been overrun by those Christian losers.
The "outro" to Fuck Off Nowadays Black Metal is none other than an instrumental version of Mötorhead's Orgasmatron (I hope most realized that classic!). However, in his quest to become the world's most elite black metaller Kanwulf fitted every odd version of the tape with an extra track: "A Black Metal Song, just for Black Metal Maniacs." It's quite good actually, and extremely monotonous. More amazing yet however is the fact that each of the 100 limited LP versions of this contains a small piece of the master tape, as if Kanwulf might somehow expect everyone owning it to unite hands and combine them. Bizarre.
One final thing, which has nothing to do with the recording nor does it matter, but just for curiosity's sake: Did Wolf from Absurd beat the fuck out of Kanwulf, or vice versa? Conflicting viewpoints...
© 2002 hando