Published: 2 Sep 2024
Drawing Down the Moon
- Release date: 1993
- Genres: Black Metal
- Rating: 3.5/5
- Originally written: 8th April 2024
A damn solid low-fi Black Metal album unlike no other. It initially sounds goofy and extremely amateur in almost every sense, but look beyond the rather basic musicianship and you’ll find an excellent album dripping in atmosphere and hitting the sweet spot of silly cheesy fun and a legitimately ominous listen. The more instrumental/ambient passages are a bit of a miss (clearly covering from an aforementioned lack of musical proficiency), but its a minor miracle this album works as well as its does, giving an extremely unique charm.
Best tracks: Salomon’s Gate, Noctural Evil, Sadomatic Rites, The Gate Of Nanna
H418ov21.C
- Release date: 1994
- Genres: Dark Ambient
- Rating: 1.5/5
- Originally written: 6th July 2024
A drastic change in sound, mainly due to the founder moving, not being able to reform his band and subsequently losing interest in metal music altogether. Apparently this album is comprised mainly of unfinished/tweaked samples, and it certainly sounds like it.
The album is obviously not good, comprising of whatever sounds were present on a cheap Casio keyboard, combined with similarly cheap vocal layering and processing on top - thus sounding like a soundtrack for an obscure 90s video game that doesn’t exist developed on a shoestring budget. Just bizarre enough to be interesting despite itself.
Best tracks: Emotional Ecstasy
Electric Doom Synthesis
- Release date: 1996
- Genres: Ambient, EBM
- Rating: 2.5/5
- Originally written: 8th July 2024
Could definitely be described as H418ov21.C part 2, but that would be an understatement. Electric Doom Synthesis is a much more cohesive, realised vision of a ambient album imbued with metal sensibilities and attitude, done entirely within the sterile and clean electronic production rather than black metal’s usual grim sloppiness - no mean feat. I still don’t think I’m personally the target audience (and believe the overlap between this and Drawing Down the Moon to be… rather small) but I can certainly appreciate a few of the tracks here, Dead Inside is a personal highlight in how ominous and ritualistically tribal it sounds.
Best tracks: Dead Inside, Drawing Down the Moon
