Okkultokrati : "Night Jerks"

Part of Norway's Black Hole Crew a scene of metal tinged Hardcore, Okkultokrati is often labelled black metal just because they are from Norway and their earlier work might have played into this more , but the opener to their new album "Night Jerks" comes closer to being post-punk. The vocals are a cold croaked croon choking on it's on disdain.Some what lo-fi in the way they bathe these songs in re-verb, this albums also finds the band delving into some pretty bleak noise. Songs like "Zero Kulto" indulge in this excessively and become little more than interludes.

The title track reminds you their hardcore label has more to do with Black Flag and not so much to do with Converge.The post-punk elements are more along the lines of the Damned here. The vocals don't commit to fully being a growl nor are they really sung, almost like  early Cro-mags at times."Moon Daggers" comes the closest to having a black n Roll feel if you are think say "Cult is Alive". The snarl in the vocals carries a little of  Venom's poison to them here.

"Rose Crux' is a more balatant step towards post-punk. Straddling the fence between Killing Joke and a grim Swans drone.The vocals chant rose crux and the drums have a militant industrial snap to the snare."the Ladder" takes a cold hollow clang to it that is not far removed from industrial either. The more Henry Rollins like barked narrative sits on a odd blues lumber. The album ends with a 16 minute blanket of noise called "Cosmic Wynter". It's more like a long drawn out outro than a song. Really I would prefer to have had two more real songs from these guys rather than to have them, use noise as filler. I never count these types of things as songs when I rank albums because I normally delete them and this is proving to be no different. I will give this album a 9 as I really like the actual songs that are on here, I think they are wonderfully mean and dark combining many elements I seek out in my music. Hopefully these guys will get over there noise fixation and write a proper album based off the elements working so well here.