Abruptum: De Profundis Mars Vas Consument

Mayhem : The Freezing Moon

Dissection : Where Dead Angels Lie

Emperor: Moon Over Kara-Shehr

Mysticum: Kingdom Comes

Marduk: Untrodden Paths (Wolves Pt. II)

Thorns: Aerie Descends

Mayhem: Pagan Fears

Dissection: Elizabeth Bathori

Ophtalamia: Deathcrush

Enslaved: Loke

Arcturus: Rodt Og Svart

Mysticum: In Your Grave

Emperor: The Ancient Queen

Mortiis: Unreleased Outro

 distributed in CH by Irascible Distribution

review by Boris "Azrael" Witta ___               

This album is cult. Pure cult. Cuuuuuuuuuuuuuult!! Originally, “Nordic Metal” was the idea of Euronymous (R.I.P.) and his friend Paul “Typhon” Thind from Necropolis Records. Euronymous wanted to release a collection-album of bands, in which he believed. Because Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes murdered Euronymous in 1993, the release was delayed and the album came out for the first time in 1996. This is now the re-release, but it’s exactly the same album as the first edition. If you listen to “Nordic Metal”, you can feel and breathe the spirit of earls, minimalistic Black Metal. Every song is very intense, extremely hateful, misanthropic and spreads a dark, an origin, an anxious atmosphere, you feel the pure essence of evil. Someone who is in Black Metal will worship this album, and during the listening of “Nordic Metal”, you get the impression if yourself would be in Norway, a cold wind blows, churches are burning. Logically, the line-up of the band is the who-is-who of the early Black Metal-scene. From Mayhem, there are two songs, “The Freezing Moon” and “Pagan Fears, both from the classic “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”, and the most macabre thing is, that in this album, Euronymous and his murder Varg play together, Euronymous the guitar and Varg the bass. There are rumours, that someone else re-played Vargs bass-lines before “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” came out, but actually, that’s not true.

When I listened to the Emperor-songs on this album for the first time, I didn’t recognize them. “Moon Over Kara-Shehr” and “The Ancient Queen” are just fantastic True Black Metal, cold, aggressive, with a hysteric voice, a minimalistic underground-production and they are just the best I ever heard from Emperor, and of course these two tracks are from their first demo “Wrath Of The Tyrant”, which was also essential for the development of Black Metal. Another well-known band is Marduk. Here, they play “Untrodden Paths (Wolves Pt. II)” from the album “Opus Nocturne”. Morgan Steinmeyer Hakansson, mastermind of Marduk, was a good friend of Euronymous and so it’s logical that his band appears on “Nordic Metal”. For me it was interesting to listen to this song, because I never heard Marduk without Legion, and on “Opus Nocturne”, Joakim Grave was the singer. “Untrodden Paths…” is a typical Marduk-song, fast, with lots of blastbeats and supreme guitars of Morgan.

The sickest band on this album is certainly Abruptum (quotation: “This is not music, only pure evil!”). “De Profundis Mors Vas Consumet” sounds, if a very hateful, a suicidal and indeed sick person created this song, and the vocals are absolutely inhuman, a song, which isn’t easy to describe. This song is a challenge for the listener, it’s not easy to survive “De Profundis Vas Consumet”.

Completely different are some other bands. Dissection for example: They always played a very mystic version of Black Metal, always with great melodies, and their two songs are “Where Dead Angels Lie” (from “Storm Of The Light’s Bane” – also classic!) and “Elizabeth Bathori” from the EP “Where Dead Angels Lie”. Just don’t think about what Jon Nödveidt did (he’s still arrested in prison for murderer), then you really can enjoy Dissection.
Again totally different is Arcturus’ song “Rodt Og Svart” from the “Constellation”-Mini-CD), which contains a lot of keyboards and synchs, but this doesn’t matter, it’s another great song and I like it very much – in contrary to the music of today’s Arcturus.

Enslaved is a real progressive and experimental band – today. “Loke” is straight, aggressive, fast and hateful, brutal and destroying. I don’t see very big differences to Black Metal, but Enslaved play “Viking Metal exclusively”.

A special thing is, that also Thorns is on this album, I mean, the mainman of this band, Snorre Ruch, helped Varg Vikernes to kill Euronymous. But anyway, “Aerie Descends” is great in its way, it’s very cold, kind of simple, but very effective.

A band which I didn’t know until I heard “Nordic Metal” was Ophtalamia. Actually, I still don’t know much about them, besides they come from Sweden and play a great version of Mayhem’s cult-song “Deathcrush”; which is actually very thrashy and a bit reminding to Thrash-heroes like Sodom and Destruction, and these two bands also were very accepted in the 90s Black Metal-scene.

And the last band is Mysticum, and I have to say that was the best surprise, because I never heard anything of this band. Both songs (“Kingdom Comes” and “In Your Grave”) are very aggressive, very harsh and really a fist in the face. Unfortunately, Mysticum split up a short time ago.

An unreleased, great, dark, and perfect Outro of Mortiis (Ex-Emperor) finishes the album, and I have to say that “Nordic Metal” is the best piece of True Black Metal I heard for the last years.

Rest in peace, brother, we will see you soon…

Rating:10/10  

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