N'Zwaa : "Maha Kali"

Here is a black metal comprised of chants of the infamous Indian goddess Kali. After an atmospheric opening bit, they blast into pretty dense black metal with some thrash influence to make it more interesting than just blast beats. While it's very heavy and impressive what I say about extreme metal is the first impact is impressive, but after the sting wears off you are faced with the question...but can they actually write a song. The answer is still a little vague on "Kali Gayatri" there are some galloping chugs to break things up and a hint of Morbid Angel influence, think "Altars of Madness" , but nothing that recall sets them apart from the herd aside from the overall concept of the Indian mythology rather than defaulting to more typical occult trappings.

These guys make better death metal than black metal and when they go that route on "Jaadoo se..." the results are much more powerful. The title track also leans more in a death metal direction.  It continues on with the more old school death metal feel. It might be best to in fact consider this band more blackened death metal as that is where there heart seems to be. It doesn't feel like the same darkness that black metal carries in the first place. The last song finds the vocals more scathing. Some of this is the rough filter put over them to give a rawer sound , The production shift on this song almost makes it feel like it was live. There is more of a the creeping darkness that feels like black metal here.

I will round this up to an 8 , as i think my expectations caused me to listen to this with a different set of ears. This is not to say that at some junctures they are no not sometimes confused as to what direction they truly want to go and split the difference with what ended up as the final product. The same could be said about bands like Vimur, who came around and have been more secure in their vision, so by the next album this band should do the same. As it stands this is still pretty impressive.