Pantheon from Arkansas are relatively new band in the US extreme metal underground scene, this being their second full length opus. But members of Pantheon are in no way new to the scene playing or having played in Empyrean, Genocide Winter, Epoch of Unlight and many more. This one contains 9 songs. The music is that American school of death metal with lots of black metal and thrash metal influences, I can hear Slayer influence in awesome ‘Man-Infestation’. There are blast beats, blistering thrash death solos and brutal growled death metal vocals. But, there are also some epic melodies on this one like in my favorite Absence of Light with that great main guitar melody and this time vocals are black metal screeching not growling. With songs like heavy hitters ‘Death Is In The Air’ or ‘Eviscerate Desecrate Cremate’ there is no mercy, no holds barred blackened death thrash metal and I am really happy having discovered this band. Right on good record.
Time for Norwegian black metal to grace the pages of this zine. Slegest from Norway have their new opus out with Dark Essence Records. This opus contains eight songs, one being Status Quo cover, yes you read it right. Now, this opus is very interesting. It is basically old school Norwegian black metal like it has that vibe like it was played back in the nineties. But, the album is not your clone or nothing like that. This one has a mixture of doom and almost black ‘n roll feel in some song structures. There are no blast beats here this has almost punk rooted songwriting, simple yet effective and every song is a hard hitter. For example ‘Innsikt’ starts and ends with whistling and has almost country influence in some song structures, at least I heard it like that. ‘Forløysning og rus’ has that black ‘n roll feel and faster punk attitude like there was in early black metal which made me love this music so much. Besides SQ cover, all the lyrics are in Norwegian, also old school tactics, vocals are harsh but not too extreme, just the way they should be in this kind of album. ‘Vinterkristus’ is also one of my highlights on this album being a mixture of Motorhead, d-beat and black metal. The originality continues with ‘Gåte’ having that awesome saxophone solo towards the end of the song. ‘Til det største som finst’ has such guitar melody that it made goosebumps on my skin making it one of my favorite on this record. Status Quo cover is just something that is okay, different a bit than original but that is an intention to be. Superb album.
Bavarian black metal one man entity Skognatt released new opus, this time in form of an e.p. There are three songs on this one, each representing ‘Mountains’, ‘The River’ and ‘Moon’ at night. The music is fast, raw yet atmospheric and melodic black metal, creating and holding a melancholic sad guitar melody in ‘Mountains’ with screaming anguished vocals, sometimes turning into atmospheric clean singing and fast drums, courtesy of Gerileme who was involved in making this opus with main man DZ. ‘The River’ is maybe a bit mid tempo and less blasting than the previous song, creating an atmosphere of eternal life and river which flows no matter who we are, how we fought or how we died, river will not remember us. I used to walk and watch the river at night and it is something special, the force and power of nature, almost healing and respectful power. This one is a pure instrumental, but it really doesn’t matter, strong music creates picture. ‘Moon’ is longest song on this record and haunting guitar main melody keeps coming back to your along with fast drums and screaming vocals, this is a perfect mixture of raw black metal with melody and atmosphere. Great e.p.
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