It’s always interesting to review an album released on vinyl. The reviewing tactics change, you have to listen with a very keen ear because, unlike their CD counterparts, albums released on vinyl are terribly difficult to “rewind” to a specific point. You have to pick up the needle and gently place it on the spot where you best guess the point you want to hear is located. However, despite its inability to easily play the same portion of a song twice, vinyl forces you to pay attention to what is going on during the course of an album like no CD could ever do. So, in that sense, I am glad that Swedish black metal band The Black released their second LP (and fist release since 1994)
Alongside Death on vinyl, because it forced me to listen to the record many, many times before I got a clear sense of everything which was going on.
The process of acquiring said LP was interesting in itself, and involved contacting vocalist Daniel Bragman (also of Vinterland) directly to get one copy of the limited (but surprisingly cliché) number of 666 which were made. It involved paying Mr. Bragman in Swedish Kronor (an interesting prospect of monetary conversions), and a wait of 3 weeks for the Swedish post to ship the record to my front door. Was it all worth it? Absolutely. Is The Black’s latest LP a masterpiece of raw black metal? Not really, but it adds up to one of the best examples of it I’ve heard in a while.
The three man band The Black featured two of the guys from Swedish melodic black metal act Vinterland, the aforementioned vocalist Daniel Bragman and Vinterland drummer Andreas Jonsson, as well as the unknown mastermind of the band Make Pesonen. These three guys work their black metal magic and craft a solid example of old-school raw black metal. The atmosphere is minimal at best, with no ominous keyboards to attempt to sound symphonic or deeply atmospheric, just treble-laden guitar riffs and the oh-so popular blast beats constantly drilling themselves into your mind. The eight song record moves at a fairly quick pace, usually swapping between the shorter and more brutal songs such as “On The Descent To Hell” or “Fleshless” and the longer (but still quite heavy) tracks such as the standout track “A Contract Written In Ashes” and the title track “Alongside Death”.
If you are expecting the slightest hint of melody or order to the album, you will surely be disappointed by the fact that melody is pretty much a foreign term to this band. The guitars are scratchy, fast-paced, and not really all that welcoming. Sure, you can take into account the slower, audible riff which opens up “A Contract Written In Ashes”, which is a lumbering droll repeating a simple but highly effective riff before the near perfect voice of Bragman works its way into the track. Speaking of Bragman’s vocals, they are probably the highlight of the record. Think of them as a more audible version of USBM band Leviathan and you have something along the lines of what is put forth on
Alongside Death. They are raspy, highly distorted, but undeniably awesome in a sense only black metal fans can really appreciate. The lyrics are also interesting, but not in an overly stupid, drawn-out fashion which can plague many black metal bands (Judas Iscariot, anyone?). They are short, simple, but quite effective in portraying the pretty dismal mood this album sets out to achieve.
It’s surprisingly simple to sum up
Alongside Death: quality black metal. Everything from the awesomeness which is “A Contract Written In Ashes” to the dark instrumental “The Wrath From Beneath” to the short but sweet “On The Descent To Hell”, the material which The Black has written is a nice change from the bizarre twists which black metal is starting to take these days. I know that I’ve said on many, many occasions that innovation is the first and foremost key to great music, but sometimes, when it really gets down to it, I just want to throw all that out the window and just start headbanging.
