CHAOS INVOCATION - In Bloodline With The Snake CD / LP

Unusually Swedish-sounding black metal from Germany. Album definitely proves a big piece of work done made by people who are obviously  playing this type of music since many years.

The variety of song structures and the sophisticated bulid-ups and unexpected sections stun and instantly recall late 90's bands like mid era Sacramentum, and even a more recent band Valkyrja. In fact I'd say the excellent first Valkyrja LP is sub-par to this album. There is definitely a lot of things going on, even too much of the information within this grand work so that at first few listens it may seem a bit too much.But the replay value still remains high so that it eventually reveals to be a very fluent and enjoyable listening experience. Lyrics deal with orthodox black metal matters, but in a storytelling  way that does not deal much with the "I" approach at all. There is a lot of good riffs here, some very simple yet effective, others nicely complicated but never crossing the border into being overambitious. All these little things that shine and the solid structure that hold them firmly and  make this LP a really convincing and inspired output. As said the replay value is relatively high even despite the fact that this band sound-wise owes a lot to the already pre '08 heavily bloomed orthodox bm genre.

FLAGELLANT - Monuments LP / CD

180 degree turn since their demo. Band abandoned their previous gloomy and raw blackmetal noise in favour of a more polished sound with drums being in front of the recording and a guitar being less audible yet more clearer set at a higher tuneage . Also new are the rusty sounding thrashy vocal patterns (German 80's style ) higher in the mix than you'd expect with lyrics rhythmically ignoring most of song parts in the way you'd normally expect rhythm wise.Somewhat reminiscent of early Katharsis yet even more sloppy and I dare to say annoying at given moments. These songs easily manage to keep their identity due to very nice distinguishable patterns that set them apart yet don't water the album down to seem non-coherent. Lyrics seem halfway from being primitive to being somewhat sophisticated with few very good moments where in combination with the music the magic starts to work.Despite the truly aggressive mix of vocals the album works convincing and very fluent so that it turns it's unusual birthmark into a very desirable and positive point at the total. The album does not demand too much replay but when it does it can seem like a thing out of this word. It is good for special occasions & pretty demanding yet it gives back all it's unusual self  in return for a real treat.