Black Metal History Month: Slaegt's "Ildsvanger"

It made me wonder  if it was the fact I  had  just listened to "Transylvanian Hunger" earlier today ,  but these Danes have slathered their sound in Old Darkthrone rawness.The rusty snare rattles and blown out feedback of their amps only furthers their connection to the "necro' sound. This is one of the most spot on takes of this style that I have  heard into some. The vocals are pretty much dead on for early Darkthrone, there are a few moaned chants of clean vocals, but most of it is the mid ranges  throat raking anguish. In some ways this is similar to Thulcandra's tributes to Dissection. Though the Dutch band attempts to inject more originality and song writing smarts into their music. Thing like the doomier section and spoken vocals break away the Darkthrone taking on more of a Burzum vibe. So these guys must only listen to black metal on vinyl and have no clue that Deafheaven exists. Even with the break of clean guitar at the end of "Vidderne Bag Dig"

Not unlike the early days of  the second wave of black hailing from Norway there is ample punk influence. Sometimes this works better than others, but that can be said for even the artist they draw h inspiration from. The vocal scrape into some growls that are a little lower on "Indviet Med Blod" which also finds the band capturing some of their catchiest riffs on the album.The slower lurch into "Udaengsel" allows for a more sonic tension to be established , and while it doesn't carry the blast beaten frenzy of other songs, it comes across as being one of the album's more well rounded songs. the

The album ends on a more creative note with "Den Store In Tethed" actually stumbling it's way into some melody. Their is still a raw distorted fuzz over the slow darkened sway of the guitars. The clean guitars at the beginning of the last song help provide a more dynamic build to ripping buzz saw of riffage to come blazing forth. Tempo wise they manage to restrain themselves from relying solely on blast beats. The galloped accents help the vocals to punch themselves into the song harder.

If you like really raw old school black metal you might want to even round this up higher than the 8 I am giving this album. They are successful at capturing the sound of the time period they are going for. Though they don't really hit the drone some of the old Darkthrone does, but they are close enough for horse shoes and hand grenades.