Black Metal History Month- Negativa : " 04"

The mystic nature of black metal causes it to be more sensitive to the region from it was spawned. You might say Spain is capable of delivering and perhaps they are, but can this project prove me wrong? This is the 3rd album so they should know what they are doing by now. The mood of the opening track had me sold until the blasting took off and then the mood became secondary. Once the blasting took off this began to sound like everything else. Props for a bass you can hear in the mix. When it slows down the instrumentation has room to breathe. The vocals work for what is going on at present, but my fear for this album is the sound is going to be uniform and every song will be the same.

Much like other forms of extreme music the heaviness or oppressive nature might wow you when they storm the gates on the first song. After that I ask the question... but can you write a song?  Skilled at capturing sounds, that part has been perfected. The opening of the second song convinces me this. The vocals are pretty much an afterthought and if this does not change by the next song will get old fast.  The song song is more about the layered drone.  The frenzied blasts of the third song does little to help this album's case. The song does slow in more of a pulse but then blasts back up. Thye fourth track is little more than an instrumental interlude. 

The most interesting riff might come from this fifth song/ There is a slower grind to the riff of the sixth song. It does bear to mention these songs do not just sprawl out into the bleak nothingness from which they came. They are rather simple in their arrangement with maybe three sections with which they shift between, sometimes just going from fast to slower. The slow is maintained well on the 6th some to create dismal picture for your ears. The last song does not begin to redeem itself until three minutes in then becomes sonically more impressive as it hits that bleak sweet spot for me. I wish there was more of that. This album is a mixed, bag the vocals are the part that proves my point about egregore playing a part as the notes played break boundaries, the vocals express torment but not from the same place as if this came from somewhere that capture the depression of living in a cold dark place, so I round this album down to an 8, which is still better than most bands are going to achieve. Out on Dissociative Visions.