Why do I feel like I have heard this before? Well, probably because this is rather uninspired and somewhat unoriginal sounding black metal. This feels like so many other Nordic black metal albums. I really like some of Gorgoroth's later albums, but this is kind of generic sounding. Granted, they take the black metal style and play it very well, but they don't do anything new with it. Is it fast, evil, primitive? Well, yeah. Is it something I haven't heard before? Ummm...no. This album could give someone a good idea of a black metal template--but nothing strikingly brilliant.
Outstanding. I like this so much better than Pentagram. Gorgoroth's 1994 release just sounded too generic for me to really get into it. This, on the other hand, has some serious character, depth to it. Not the world's most original black metal band, Gorgoroth basically spend the 25 minutes of this album honing and sharpening their already potent Norwegian sound. Charging ahead with no-frills, no-keyboards, no-glam black metal is what this is all about. In their production and riffing style, they manage to provide a rather important bridge between they lo-fi minimalism of the Burzum-Darkthrone strain and the later symphonic madness of the Emperor-Dimmu Borgir strain (think Obtained Enslavement or earlier Dodheimsgard maybe?). This is just grim and raw enough to remain on the fringe of "cult", yet not so much as to turn away any black metal neophytes.
