I have recently been introduced to this band by a friend of mine and was quite surprised at not having heard this record before. I have never really heard much about them before so I was surprised that they were already around since 1991 when they were formed by Trondr Nefas. He claims his direct musical influences to be early Metallica, Death and Sepultura. This shows itself mostly through the fact that the lyrics on this record are noticeably more intelligent than some of the other Black Metal opuses we have come to love to hate. He is earnest in not hiding his admiration for metal grandfathers like Iron Maiden or Blue Oyster Cult. This is at the very least a refreshing attitude from some who only accept the most extreme forms of Black Metal as being worthy of admiration. Despite these varied cited influences Urgehal manage to create a sound of their own which if I had to categorize it would be most akin to Darkthrone's relentless brutality combined with Hellhammer/Celtic Frost riffs. The drum and bass section does seem more audible on this release than on some other brutal Black Metal Releases.
The artwork places the record unmistakably in the traditional Black Metal corner. Black and white logos and artwork and the ever present corpse paint and warrior outfits. Urgehal actually have a reason for doing this. They started out as a band is that want to keep the old school black metal underground feeling and their goal has always been expressing that feeling they had in 1992 when the Norwegian scene was on the rise. They stay true to their formula and in my opinion do this quite successfully.
The music is a mix of hypnotic black metal soundscapes and brutal rusty knife vocals. The album never relents and its absolute highpoint is the ‘Conjuring the Hordes of Blasphemy’ track. Despite this in reality being an old school black metal record without any traditional ‘beauty’ and full of intentional lack of aesthetics it is surprisingly accessible and is a good first foray if you are interested in checking out some raw black metal but want to look further than Darkthrone.
note: 8/10
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