.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
After a walk of a few meters we enter a room to the right which is just as powerful as the hallway. In the middle of the room is a table with space for many people and cabinets full of drinks of various kinds, and beautiful porcelain stand with the walls. Mu smile when I look big eyed into the grand dining room and waving at me and the other to sit us down at one end of the giant table.
"Sit down, please sit own! I will return with food for our new friend. You can introduce yourselves meanwhile," says the captain cheerfully and run through a door to which most likely lead to the kitchen. The two girls sit on the right side of the table, the boy takes place at the seat at the side and my place is on the left side.
In a few minutes no words are uttered, and the girls look curiously at me while smiling a strange smile that is difficult to decipher. Beside me sits the boy cockily in his throne-like chair and seems to look at some invisible spot just above my head. When the silence reigns, I wonder if they are waiting for me to introduce myself or if their shyness is more antagonism than curiosity. Quickly I decide to demise the silence by I pronounce myself which I do.
"My name is Sebastian M. and is 14 years," I say reasonably timid. The result is that the young ladies on the other side turn their faces against each other and continue with their so perplexing smiles. First out to give me the response is the boy who starts to speak without looking me in the eye.
"Which planet then?" He says with a shuffling and almost superior voice. What is the kind of question?, I think, but I tell him that I derive from Tellus. A smile spreads over his thin face and he is pulls forth a thin hand. "A human face is seen every day!" He says in a much warmer tone, without any sign of superiority and he even look me in the eye. "Oberoni Makelivich is the name but you can call the
The talkative boy finishes his presentation of himself.
The girl with the different coloured eyes changes position on the chair and lean forward. "Elena Erie from Aegyptia. I am actually the daughter of the templelord Ihmuhmis, "she say neutrally, although I do not know what a templelord is, it is probably something to be proud of. "Pull up your hands and put them on mine," she puts her olive-coloured hands on the table. Despite my uncertainty, I do that Elena asked me to do. That moment she closes her eyes and chants in a for me unknown tongue.
"So!" Chirps Elena and open her eyes quickly while she corrects its tiara, The tiara looks to be in a material resembling the gold with hieroglyphs engraved and at the very front is a cat's head in miniature. A beautiful stone in green is the cat's eyes and the teeth gleams in silver. "Now we have officially met," Elena smiles sincerely and leans back. The beautiful head adornment captures my gilmpse and I declare my admiration. The remark is answered by a flattered giggle.
"Oh, this tiara did I received of my father on a harvest festival the other year. Very beautiful, but not so valuable. If you follow me to Aegyptia some time, I can buy one for you too." The last sentence makes me blush, which probably is noticed by all.
"It was nothing romantic in my offer; I just wanted to be nice." Elena gives a sharp look at her comrade, but takes no notice of
"It's probably best to present you now," says Elena, and gives the pale girl a friendly pat on the back. Only now I notice that how much longer the pale is in comparison with Elena.
Not just on her skin is pale, but her whole body is white as a ghost - and even the eyes has a light grey tint.
"Lektras," she says in an almost declining voice "from the planet Bleesho, above the clouds." Lektras stretches out her left hand and sign for me to do the same. We shake hands and I ask her what she meant by "above the clouds." Without considering for a long time she says calmly.
"Well, you understand Bleesho have two dominant races, the one that I belong to and another one. My race is often called the Ghostpeople because of our pale bodies and ability to travel between planets and dimensions without crafts or dimension chambers. Above the clouds means that our home is mostly above the high clouds that separates the habitable zones of Bleesho.
The second race however, is known for its shipyards and its tendency to be bolder than their intelligence in various situations. What they call themselves is unknown, but the nickname most often heard is “the shipbuilders”. These ship-builders live on the lush fields, which covers most of the planet’s surface. Often, there was serious conflict between them and us the Ghostpeople and the origin is hidden in the mist of history. Right now there is an unstable ceasefire imposed by the widespread sanction issued by RPISS and my mother is a diplomat to ensure that peace remains and hopefully stabilize. Oh, you might wonder what CPISS is, right? "- I nod -" Well, there is an abbreviation for the Council for the Planetary and InterStellar Security and consists of over 500 representatives from different planets that are replaced after about six years and will see that conflicts do not flare up and calm is maintained in the inter-rigid teachings corridors - which is much as the highways on your planet. Otherwise, this is the advice a subset of the
After all have presented themselves the mood becomes much easier, we are talking about almost everything and it is me who ask the most. Nobody seems to be disturbed over my curiosity. After a while, so I come to question why they know so much about Tellus and I do not know anything about them. Oberoni is the first to decide to answer my a little bit special question.
"You have to excuse me but it is very difficult to explain but I will do my best ..."
"I take it another time," says the elf boy and sits properly in his chair.
Captain Mu is, as usual, in good mood and put down the heavy tray right in front of me on the table.
"I see that you got to know each other very well. I am really pleased, really much." Cluck Mu. What is on the tray is difficult to say but it looks like something I'd never seen before. On a octagon shaped plate is something fishlike with a gleaming flesh and nearby lies some similar to knitting needles things but they are orange. The rest of the weird plate is covered by vegetables, which is not at the slightest earthly. The only thing resembling something from Earth is a bundle of beetroots which are blue! On the left side of the plate is a set of ordinary cutlery, which looks misplaced among all alien food. A beautiful saffron yellow bread is wrapped in a cloth napkin with a magnificent embroidery on it is nearby. On the other side of the plate, a glazed fruit bowl filled with fruit is found. The fruits would place very well in a fruit garden for kitsch freaks, although they look very tasteful. In a narrow and elongated bottle is a liquid that is bright blue and the cork is pyramid shaped. A triangular glass is just next to it. Just above the centre of the glass is a remarkable engraving with the head of an animal that looks like a cross between a lizard and a cat. The grotesque animal head is surrounded of a strange collar and underneath is a text that says: "Merike’s Breweries". My surprise, is observed and Mu says:
"I understand that all this food looks a bit strange for a earthling, but do not worry. Everything you have in front of you on the tray is completely harmless to your race. Not only that I am the master of this freighter, I am an outstanding cook, as well. You have my word of honour, so eat my young friend."
Mu takes off the distasteful apron and sits next to me shortly thereafter, I cut into the fish. The taste that overwhelms me is against perception delicious, but very difficult to place. After the little timid beginning, I really eat for king and fatherland. Suddenly the older man to speak relatively serious:
"I see that you like my food, I am very pleased. To the point; the thing that attacked you was a modified war machine from Yrolon, the death planet, the owner of the hovercraft was the warlord N'broni Ghutla. Yrolon have since the primordial times been a theatre of war on which various groups struggle for domination over the other groups. One of these factions was The Dragon’s Head, perhaps not the largest or most influential, but the most brutal of them all.
To Ghutla then: He was born about 50 Earth years ago to a peasant in the faction the Falcon’s Flight. He saw the peasant class was oppressed in the faction he lived in and wanted to do something about it. What attracted him to The Dragon’s Head is not certain, but there is a theory. In his thirteenth year of life when he was with his sister in the city closest to his home, there he witnessed the execution of supporters to The Dragon’s Head. A sympathizer last words is said to have been: 'Hail The Dragon’s Head, nation of the Free!’ This expression made Ghutla to believe that The Dragon’s Head was the patron of the weak and was safeguarding people's freedom. This was obviously not true, but young and stupid as he was he swallowed it.
Some years later he came to a terrorist movement that wanted to connect his home to The Dragon’s Heads faction. Ghutla participated on the night in raids against The Falcon’s Flight and demonstrated its slyness and workability. In just six months, he rose in the grades that nobody else had made before. Finally, he was closest adjutant next to the team leader and planned an attack that would defeat The Falcon’s Flight authority in the province. The attack was discovered, and many members were shot to death, the remaining fled into the forests. Most of the refugees was found and executed, however, Ghutla succeeded together with a companion to cross the border into The Dragon’s Head’s province. After they were discovered by some border guards they were brought to the Governor’s court. The Governor was impressed by their courage, and when it turned out that they did something for The Dragon’s Head’s sake he put them into work in his castle.
The Comrade of Ghutla was significant neither for the terrorist movement nor Ghutla himself. This story does therefore not tell much about her fate after the exodus. We know much more about Ghutla however, the governor recruited him to be strategist and head of the intelligence services in the province. Again Ghutla won and thanks to him, many provinces were incorporated into The Dragon’s Head. The power had made Ghutla so greedy now so he had forgotten his original quest.
Ghutla had become a cruel and ruthless commander not thinking about anything other than his own gain. When he reached the 27th year of life he was appointed General of the Dragon’s Eye – the ruler – personal bodyguards and field marshal in The Dragon’s Heads army. Hunger for more control was still not calmed, despite his enormous power. He planned along with a small group of the some faithful henchmen to overthrow the then ruling Eye of the Dragon. The coup was planned very carefully and many of the people were part of the bodyguard. Not surprisingly, the coup was not surprisingly successful and Ghutla had for once, a stillness in his hunger for a while.
As I said earlier The Dragon’s Head was notorious for its brutality, but Ghutla made his kingdom to a domain of horror with ethnic cleansings and massacres of civilians. The whole planet was almost in Ghutla’s hands and he required more power once again. Many had fled to the moons surrounding Yrolon, but soon, they were not safe there. In a desperate attempt to prevent the aggressive forward momentum the colonists sent a delegation to the next planet port to get to the core. The core is where GCFS and its subdivisions house. Its purpose was to end the terror reign on the planet and destroy The Dragon’s Head. In short, the delegation arrived, via planet gates the distance are irrelevant you understand, and suddenly RPISS sent a peacekeeping force. After a lengthy and bloody invasion could be peace for the first time in hundreds of men’s memories finally breathe on Yrolon again. The Dragon’s Head had dissolved and Ghutla was seen no more. "
This album is to many Darkthrone's best and on the other side there is quite many nay-Sayers. Which side do I stand on then, maybe you wonder? Frankly, I neither say it sucks or is the best album created, I am thinking it is nearly their best album because it lack a little of variety. Now, let the review unfold in its own odd way.
This album is a little different from most Darkthrone albums instead of just handling the drums and writing lyrics bandleader Fenriz also took hold of the guitars and the four stringer also to let band mate Nocturno Culto fully concentrate on the vocals. If you ask me this is quite cool. Some may think let a drummer handling all instruments may make it just half-baked, but I think Fenriz does it very well and knows what he is doing on every instrument.
The production is the thing that has provoked the biggest deal of discussion around this album so let's take a look at it. The production is quite normal for a black metal album, but if you compare to other genres it is very rough. The vocals are low mixed, the drums do sound like the drum sound that was common in the 60's and to an untrained ear the guitars just sound like white noise. Nay-Sayers of Darkthrone and black metal in general say the band can't play and sound like they were playing in a garage. Also they do think it was unintentional, but also this is indeed very wrong.
When recording this album Fenriz and Nocturno Culto knew exactly what they were doing, this is not a rush-job in anyway; it is very well crafted and competent. If you listen to Soulside Journey which was released around 4 years earlier, the musicianship is very technical and people do not getting worse at playing over time, right? The production differs greatly from this and "Soulside Journey" (SJ have much more crisp) so that's even much crafted.
Now I suggest we skip train to the vocals. Nocturno's vocal performance differs a lot on most Darkthrone releases and the ones preformed here is my favourite. Here he put so much emotion to them I am astonished. The lyric are very sad and bleak and with lots contributions from Mr. Vikernes makes it even better. With these sad lyrics nothing else then depressed vocal delivery would fit as good. The title track and “En Ås i den Dype Skogen" has some of most sad delivery I have ever had by a vocalist and also some very bleak lyrics. Further than this is hard to explain but they are very good.
As I mentioned above the guitars can sound like pure noise if you have ears that are untrained. It is true that the guitars are fuzzy and distorted as hell, I cannot deny that. In every song the riffs are very similar and changes very little thought a song, and with the tremolo picking they create a whirlpool that drags you into the realm with there is always winter. Although the riffs have the fuzz effect all the time, a lot of melody and true emotion can be traced in almost every song. Even on the Celtic Frost sounding Skald av Satans Sol which is also the catchiest song on the album (unbelievably catchy for a black metal song).
Drums on this album are very fast, composed of simple blast beats and other simplistic beats played in a fast temp. With the dominating guitars it is hard to hear drums sometimes and the sound of the drums are really ugly. Very much similar to a band from the 60's with similar production. If the drums were clearer in the mix it would ruin the hypnotic feel and the album would not be as good as it is.
I don’t have to say much about the bass more than it follows the riffs, but is very much in the background. More bass is not needed but it would be very interesting to hear what that would sound like.
So to sum things up: this is a very good album, but when all songs sound quite similar you may get bored after a while. Apart from that this album is one of the strongest albums of 1994 by one of the best Norwegian black metal bands created.
This is one of my favourite black metal albums ever released. Not many albums match the beauty of this masterpiece. All Burzum album's are all close to flawless, but this one is without doubt flawless.
First let's take a look at the album cover done by Theodor Severin Kittelsen (one of the best artists if you ask me). It depicts some kind of decaying old man, lying in the edge of a path with crows flocking around him. To me this is a really depressing piece of art, but very emotional and fits the album content very well. Some of Darkthrone's material should use motifs like this instead of the bad photographs with one of the band members in an odd pose; it would fit so much more. Anyway back to Burzum now. After this album Mr. Vikernes understood how well Kittelsen's paintings fit to his music and utilized a whole lot of them in his upcoming album which was a really nice move.
On this album we hear a really nice production, it is not really the over the top fuzz, but still it manages to sound quite primitive and nature inspired. I can say the production is the best this album could get, not crispy nor fuzzy, just primitive.
The thing that takes up most place in the production pile is the guitars, that's rather common in black metal I know but still it is really beautiful here. Guitars on this album are often heavily distorted, not many clean notes here, and play very simple but atmospheric riffs. Often is the riffs repeated for very long but this only adds to hypnotic feeling and also the atmosphere. The main riff on Det som engang var is really exemplifies this.
On this album the synthesizers are rather different from the previous albums by Burzum. Earlier they were mostly used in ambient interludes and intros (which was great in its own way), now they are used in all songs. You maybe believe that it will ruin the "kvlt" and turn it to something cheesy like Dimmu Borgir. Fortunately that's not the case, it is nothing symphonic to the synthesizers just a little folk music inspired. On the black metal tracks they are quite moody and sad also. On the instrumental "Tomhet" they are indeed sad; on the other hand they are somewhat aggressive. They really want to grab the listener to the realm where gloom and emptiness reigns supreme.
Now for let’s talk a little about the rest. Vocals on this album are the typical shrieks from Vikernes' throat, but he sounds even more depressed and angry. But there is one thing that differs from the past albums; they are pushed back in the mix which is great. Now you can enjoy the other instruments more when the vocals don't deafen them so much, also this makes it a lot more depressive to the nature. His whispering screams in "Det som engang Var" do apart from the aforementioned things sound like his is almost afraid. Rather cool in my opinion.
The drums doesn't need so much of a comment, they do have quite a lot prominence. Most of the time they play quite well, but from time to time they get a little sloppy. If this is because Varg's playing ability or laziness from his side I am uncertain of, but I guess the first mentioned option. To be honest the sloppy sound, is not a bad thing at all, it only increases the nature feeling I talked about above.
Regarding the bass then it is not so much to say. Very often you can hear it, but it is nothing really special about it. The bass lines follow the rhythm guitar most of the time.
To sum it up there is the finest black metal albums created, since it has all elements a good black metal album shall have. Get this album if you want to hear darkness of the north.
One of the most well known black metal albums that were ever created I presume. Released after the band disbanded because of the death of Euronymous and Varg Vikernes being the murderer, only Hellhammer remained. If you ask me this is one of the most overrated albums in all black metal, but it is still quite good.
The production is atypical for black metal with everything heard very properly. Most black metal band strives to have as bad production as possible, but that’s not present here. I find this fitting to the vocals as Attila is so diverse and makes a very unique performance. I haven’t heard anything not even similar to his vocals here except for his other projects perhaps.
Too bad everything else doesn’t need this kind of production, the guitars is not bad but they would be a lot better if the production was a little more primitive. They have a lot of atmosphere but still they lack the emotion. The bass is very audible, which is strange since Hellhammer has said he lowered the bass parts in the mix. If this statement is true I wonder what the original recording sounded like, but I am quite sure this is just a quote from the never ending chatterbox known as Hellhammer.
Speaking of Hellhammer his drum-set is not so triggered it would be on the later recordings with this band. But funny though is that on Live in Leipzig which was released some years earlier they are triggered as hell! The patterns he play is mainly some form of blast-beats along with some fairly interesting fills. Quite different from Fenriz which more or less played the same beat for a single song or at least a larger part of it. This is half good, but I also prefer more of a hypnotic feel.
Now for the vocals, as you all know Attila Csihar of the band Tormentor was recruited to sing vocals for this album. I am a great fan of his vocals to be honest; they are unique and really diverse. Too bad they almost sound unserious on some points which ruin much of the morbid feeling I guess the Mayhem dudes wanted to achieve. The first few lines of the opener "Funeral Fog" is a great example of this. Also the "clean chanting" in the middle of the title track sound almost like a joke, especially when the lyrics are just some gibberish. It is supposed to resemble Latin, but it is just what Euronymous thought was Latin. Some of you non close-minded maybe heard of Vangelis, he uses false Latin also, but his lyrics harmonizes with the music well, here it is just random phrases.
Attila’s performance do I even found unfitting to some of the lyrics, which is may be because that Dead wrote 80% of the lyrics for this album. Dead wrote some really unique lyrics for his time, they were serious sounding and lots of emotions put into them. When Attila performs some of the songs they lose some of the feeling Dead intended. Two good examples of this are "Freezing Moon" and "Buried by Time and Dust". The first is a very good song, but Attila doesn't really capture that sad/depressed feeling when he sings. Since the song is about suicide I think the vocalist shall sound like he really wants to do it, not schizophrenic as Attila do. On "Buried..." he mostly grunts in a quite odd way and fail to get into that aggressive feeling the rest of the instruments has. It is hard to blame him really, since I think the recording process of his vocals was done in quite a rush, along with other parts of the album as well.
If you want a Mayhem album to your collection if haven't got any before, I don’t suggest this album. Buy Wolf's Lair Abyss or Ordo Ad Chao instead, they are a lot better. This is as I said quite good album, but not worth as the first album to buy of Mayhem.
