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.
Here is the little throwback for you. Norway´s Immortal are for me one of the greatest black metal bands of all times. Their frost rimmed vision is sure to inspire and bring Northern darkness to many creatures out there.
Theirs was the blast beat, theirs was epicness in later works, also their was great songwriting that still brings chills and goosebumps to my skin
Here is their first e.p. Sadly Immortal are battling in court about name and rights to the music. It should never have ended like that.
In April of 2020, Norwegian black ‘n roll brigade VREID were invited by the Norwegian Nobel Peace Center and the Inferno Festival to perform a cover song of their choosing as a part of the “Songs that change the world” series. Unfortunately, this illustrious event was swiped off the earth by the plague that has pestered the world the last years. Nevertheless, being true rock soldiers, VREID decided to continue this creative path and recorded the song, which has never been released. Now, the band is finally sharing their The song the band decided to interpret is the rock anthem “Paint it Black” by the The Rolling Stones as the band regards this track among one of the most important pioneer songs for rock n´ roll, and a blueprint from where this tree of heavy music culture has grown into a many headed beast for 7 decades now. This song and video are a celebration of the fantastic creativity that started in the 1960s and have been developed by so many great artists and bands ever since. VREID has incorporated their humble respect to many of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest musicians.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 