Garwall

This is the first time I hear from the French Melodic Black Metal-band Garwall. “Black Beast” is their first album after two Demos, an EP and a Split-CD with Axis Of Advance, Demon Realm – and the Greek NS Black Metal-band F.R.O.S.T. I don’t know, but that’s not the best publicity you can have as a band – being on a sampler with a NSBM-band. And don’t tell me that they didn’t know who the other bands were or other cheap excuses like this. And it’s also strange that the split CD isn’t listed on the official homepage of the band. I’m not very pleased of this, but let’s have a look now on the band Garwall itself. I would call their style of music a mixture between very melodic Black Metal without any keyboards, a lot of Melodic Death Metal-influences and some elements of classic Heavy Metal. The production and the sound are always very harsh and raw, but at the same time, every instrument is easy to hear and the characteristics of Garwall are obvious: First, we have the infernal voice of S.T. Balrog (who also plays in Balrog, his solo-project, and Genital Grinder), which is very aggressive, evil and often changing between high, hysteric screams and deep, abyssic growls.

The second trademark of Garwall are their guitar melodies. Every songs contains them, and without them, Garwall wouldn’t be Garwall. These melodies are sometimes destroying, sometimes epic, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and sometimes, they appear really happy – too happy in my opinion. Sometimes, the melodies are too much and too hectically. But most of the time, they are just fantastic, listen to the opener “Pride”, “Mass Of Worms” or the beginning of “Veni Vedi Vici”. Another point in which Garwall are very good is the rhythm and the tempo of the songs. Always very pushing and full of energy and power, and from time to time, as listener, you just have to bang, it’s impossible to stay calm. Also the beginning of “Les Ecorchés” is cool: A dark intro opens the song, sounds of torture and horror and a voice full of fear, and then the following words appear out of the dust: “Jesus Wept!”. But towards the end of “Black Beast”, the songs seem a bit to repeat, I got the feeling of already heard this or that part… But still, I like “Black Beast”, which became a good, solid album with some really great songs and a good, aggressive and fearsome atmosphere, but also some fillers towards the end of the album. Well, we have to see what Garwall will present us with their next opus, and get to know what this thing with F.R.O.S.T. was…

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