A bit older release but it just arrived to my eye and ear and legends deserve a review in this webzine. Kampfar from Norway have been in the scene for almost 30 years now, from 1994 mastermind Dolk and his gang deliver their mixture of Norwegian black metal, pagan metal and folk in long epics and this is their brand new opus containing 6 songs coming just under 45 minutes long. For those who don’t know yet, Kampfar is ancient Norse war cry meaning Odin or Wotan. Lyrics are again in Norwegian titles but sung in English as I could hear at times about heritage, nature, battles, pride and staying true at least it is how I understood them from translating titles. It is fascinating how Kampfar builds up from aggressive blasts of raw heritage of Norse black metal to more gentle acoustic atmospheric melodies and then mid tempo pagan almost ritualistic song parts. Although there are longer songs on almost every Kampfar release, there is not one second they get boring, at the contrary, they are exciting if you open your mind and let the music take you to mountains, north wind on your face and standing proud never letting them grind you down, warrior’s heart is hard to stop. My personal favorites: Urkraft, Flammen Fra Nord, Rekviem.
Prognan are from Croatia and this is their brand new opus. All I can say after listening to this one is that I am jaw dropped and just listen to this one over and over again. Well, it is very hard to describe this opus. Let’s start with that it is a concept album about WWI on these places which I can relate to because my greatgrandfather died in trenches fighting for Austro Hungary in the mud, blood and guts of this war in 1917. Music is epic black thrash death metal with some folk influenced vocals and even violin at the end of 28061914 start of the album with assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Neprijatelj pred vratima shows all aggression of battle, and connects it with epic melancholy almost doomy second half of the song with clean vocals, violin and choir parts being one of my personal favorites on this opus. Lyrics are in Croatian and are fantastic, so if you do not speak Croatian, maybe try to translate them, because you will not regret it. As I understand this opus describes battles between royal Serbian army and Austro-Hungarian-German forces, retreat over the mountains, coming back to war after great losses, and finally coming home to suffer in peace again. The whole album is apocalyptic atmosphere, blast beats mix with sadness and you can almost smell blood, guts and decomposed bodies on no man’s land while listening. Guitar work is epic and fantastic with melodies, but vocals are one of the best in the genre, when growling you understand what is being sung about, but also transform into awesome clean sad voice. There are also folk influenced parts on majestic Golgota. This music reflects thoughts and suffering of ordinary soldier in war. Fantastic album and for sure one of the best Croatian releases in last ten years for sure!
From Upper Austria comes Todesschrei, with their first full length opus. This one contains eight songs with titles and lyrics in German language and the music of Todesschrei is basically a mixture of raw anguished black metal and slower more depressive black with songs such as Im Herbst meines Lebens, Der Tod ruft mich, Mein letzter Weg giving good picture what this opus is about. Production is old school, raw yet atmospheric with aggression giving enough place to melancholy and guitar melody possible only in black metal. Vocals are screaming and tortured but fit perfectly. My personal favorite of all eight songs is Dem Wahn verfallen which starts with wolf’s howl and wind and is the most atmospheric song and melancholic yet aggressive song on this record. This is a strong debut.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 