Back in 1996, DARK FUNERAL was considered, on a musical point of view, as the leading band (with MARDUK) in the Swedish Black Metal movement. This is due to their first absolutely fabulous recordings, "Dark Funeral" and "The secrets of the black arts". At the time, the band's line-up had not experimented any "big" change : in fact, Draugen was playing drums on the MCD and as he left DF in order to play with SVARTSYN he was replaced by Equimanthorn but that's the only human difference between both recordings. This CD presents 11 tracks of Swedish mid/fast-tempo black metal (yes, this exists !!!), played with a big Norwegian influence. This is probably the "DARK FUNERAL touch" that made the difference, because very few bands from Sweden were not playing Black Metal with the idea it was a style dedicated to the maximum speed on Earth. So here you have few chances to be fed up with a drummer under cocaïne influence, or playing as if his life was depending on his speed... This makes a very interesting album, even if the lyrics can make you smile as they are really stereotypical of what I call "stupid satanic black metal", a style in which Swedish bands have become masters (example : just take a look at the lyrics of "My dark desires" or "The fire Eternal" and check those of bands like MARDUK or SETHERIAL and you'll understand what I mean). The sound is HUGE, very powerful and impressive far a band which was still labelled "underground" at the time. Blackmoon & Themgoroth (vocalist & guitarist) were certainly a great part of the succes of the album, as Themgoroth's voice is simply killer and hateful, he was the perfect singer for this CD as he really seems to summon Satan each time he speaks (but as most opf the lyrics are his, it's easy to guess he was singing with the guts), and Blackmoon wrote the music on EACH track of the CD except for "Satanic Blood", which is a cover of the American band VON (R.I.P.) (of course, sometimes he was helped by other members but he's the one who wrote most of the tracks). So now it become easy to understand why the following DARK FUNERAL CDs don't sound the same and are much more "speed-orientated" as any other common Swedish band... Two tracks are re-recorded versions of those which appeared on the MCD ("shadows over transylvania" & "My dark desires"), they show the progresses made by the band during this 2-year period because they are much more powerful than any track on the MCD. There's also this VON cover, played as if the band was non-human, this track is very mechanical and Blackmoon's voice (he's the one singing on this cover track) makes it much darker than the original version. Really a great CD, essential in any black metal discography.

9.5 / 10

© 2003 lord pesten