United Aryan Evil

I'm no stranger to reviewing bands with problematic ideologies, I know it has a negative side as it's the exposure and promotion, but I usually compensate by making it clear what kind of people are making the music I'm reviewing, and I usually choose releases I'm not particularly a fan of so I can make fun of them a bit. And I really have the opportunity to do so here too because even they were aware of which side they are on, with the very title of the demo they position themselves ("are we the baddies?"). However in this case I can't make fun of their music, of course I condemn and demonize the ideology that is processed in this release, but as far as Fullmoon's musical qualities are concerned, this demo is really good.

I know very few releases better than this one that show in a significant way what pagan black metal is all about, some consider it only something related to the lyrical theme, but here you can truly appreciate some of the highlights of this musical movement, repetitive and hypnotic passages, guitars that oscillate between a sharp sound and beautiful melodic rhythms, a very marked percussion with a strong tribal influence. You only have to listen to the melodic sections of the epic "The Wolfish Initiation" to understand what I mean by all this. The whole track (and the A-side in general) is a masterpiece on every level, the song flows naturally despite its long and repetitive sections, but therein lies the essence, the atmosphere is strongly encouraged while the sound maintains that rawness, as well as a beautiful melodic sound on the guitars that holds the weight of a song with lots of layers and memorable moments. The twelve minutes quickly pass and lead into a short and simple, but incredibly effective, interlude that, for some reason, thrills me since the first time I heard it, that combination of those notes together with the noise of the wind create an incredibly powerful and unique atmosphere.

I think I've made it very clear how much I like the A-side, unfortunately the B-side doesn't come close to reaching that level, the main songs on that side, "The Pagan Mountain" and "... Blood for Immortality" follow a lot of tropes we've heard previously but do it in a more discreet way, without so much grandiloquence, and I say that as something negative since this release gains a lot by taking itself seriously, the epic dimensions that "The Wolfish Initiation" reaches are unrepeatable and even less if they are attempted on a smaller scale. Still, the minimal level is maintained, and each song has enough highlights to make it memorable forever.

The poor production is, in some ways, a detail in favour of the compositions, maybe it's because I'm used to hearing it this way, but I feel that both the rawest and the most melodic moments complement each other perfectly with that dirty sound, it makes the atmosphere deeper and the sound more grim than it already is. The drums are programmed, and although there are clear moments where this is more than obvious and can detract from the magical touch of the compositions, in many moments the percussion rises as the leading piece and comes to feel completely natural, which is quite meritorious for a production of a rather amateurish character. The guitars and keyboards are used imaginatively and efficiently, they are not technical prodigies but rather effective players that are able to show a good amout of quality riffs. And in my opinion what would fail the most would be the vocal performance, with a very monotonous and marked style that reminds a lot of Rob Darken's vocal delivery (curiously he participates in this album in tracks 1 and 6).

I would have liked to end this review with a reflection on the influence this release has had and continues to have, but the truth is that despite this it is a work that is rarely talked about, and rightly so. A big part of me wishes I could hate this demo, and in fact I hate that I like it so much, it's a love/hate relationship, but that doesn't stop me from saying that fuck all those who participated in the making of this, you may be good musicians but that will never save you from being human trash.

Polish black metal has always had a strong cult following. Back in the nineties when tape-trading was a thriving form of exchange between fans of underground extreme music, and demos from Polish bands were notoriously hard to track down due to language barriers and other forms of differences which have always kept contact on a personal level between western europeans and americans and eastern Europeans at a low level. The internet has brought a lot of change, and nowadays it's extremely easy to get your hands on certain releases which were previously unavailable due to numerous re-prints at popular request. This fact, for me, proves that this music is timeless and will always be highly regarded.

"United Aryan Evil" provides for an amazing listening experience. When it comes to black metal demos, their notoriety for bad production usually precedes the listening experience, which sometimes lead to certain demos receiving bad reputation due to certain preconceptions that people still so dearly hold-on to. Most songs on this demo are mid-paced black metal in vein of early enslaved, darkthrone, Absurd and the blazebirth hall bands like nitberg and forest. The guitars are enveloped in a thin shroud of distortion and reverb which gives the guitars a very cold and grim aura.
The bass guitar is constantly present in the overall structure of the songs. It possesses a very faded presence, always on the outskirts of the aural wavelengths, trudging through the songs staying buttressed to the guitar.

The vocals on this album are nothing special, they are simple black metal shrieks that are akin to the shrieks you'd expect from Nocturno Culto. In fact, although this band is usually described as "national socialist black metal", that term usually references only the lyrical theme of the demo and has little to say in describing the actual music being played. Although most black metal produced during this era was mostly preoccupied with satanism, anti-christianity and more spiritual/apolitical themes, Fullmoon refrains from jumping on this bandwagon in the most obtuse way possible, like most other bands did during the mid-to-late nineties. Instead, on this debut demo, even though all the primitive trappings of old-school black metal are present, this release has quite a serene atmosphere which inspires nationalistic and anti-semitic sentiments if the listener allows the lyrics to enter the his subconscious as easily as the musical melodies that are present on this album do.

I highly suggest that everyone who has never came across Fullmoon, but knows about bands such as Hate Forest, Absurd, Moonblood and other central European black metal bands, would do well to check this demo out, because what this release contains, is 35 minutes of pure, unadulterated black metal with a unique ethereal soul which allows the music to flow so seamlessly and in the utmost enjoyable way.

United Aryan Evil is the most influential non-Scandinavian black metal demo that you might have never heard. That might be a bold statement but this is a bold recording. First, let me get this is out of the way right now: with that title obviously you assume what kind of band this is. Or do you? For the record, National Socialism and what the Third Reich did during WWII is clearly reprehensible. I can separate the artists from the ideology just as much as the next guy but that's not the point nor am I here to espouse any disclaiming rhetoric. I only wish to point out how the certain theme of that war in that campaign plays such a crucial role in musical inspiration of how this black metal comes out. It does so successfully and I will tell you how. Personally, I think the band uses the ideology as a taste rather than a conviction. The Mephistopheles role is just too delicious to not immerse in. And hence, Fullmoon play it out with gusto but not in the way that you think! This demo is really just black metal designed to create a gritty fantasy of total war, death and annihilation in the darkest and most epic way possible. Francis Ford Coppola once said of his legendary film Apocalypse Now, "my film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." The same idea applies here.There is a black metal embodiment ofPanzer aggression. And the band does a perfect job of it. I have listened to tons of black metal and this one of the few releases that I could say sounded genuinely frightening.

I got this originally because Rob Darken contributes on this Fullmoon demo. And since Graveland is probably the best black metal band ever, this was a no-brainer for me because listening to it, his hand prints are found all over this thing. United Aryan Evil at many times feels like a testing ground for what Following the Voice of Blood would later sound like. And let me throw out another classic black metal album that this directly influenced: Heaven In Flames by Judas Iscariot. That was a great album by a great band but it owes ALOT to this 1995 demo. It's got that stark atmosphere of epic nihilism; scorched earth, bombed out lands basically the horrors of war in black and white. The vocals are like the Darkthrone style found on Panzerfaust but Lord Xaquoreth also sounds much like Mayhem's former vocalist Dead. So of all the Norwegian black metal influences, UAE sounds most like that Panzerfaust album, some Ildjarn and obviously Burzum but other than that, this demo is so good it could be just as inspiring as those works which it is. It's almost better than the best of Burzum. Almost. This demo actually sounds more like depressive black metal in tone and that's where the Burzum influence is found. There are six songs. Half of them are instrumental interludes that blend in with the other three songs proper.

The Wolfish Initiation is one of the most haunting black metal compositions I have heard in some time. This is the track with an opening riff and atmosphere that reminded me of depressive black metal. What's so enthralling about it is how imaginative it is. The first part plays like a grim picture of a surreal WWII fantasy. You hear the guitar notes drowned in such a dire distortion level that it sounds like the humming drone from the inside of a fuselage of a Heinkel heavy bomber flying high over a war torn ghostland. It's the sound of desolation and it feels so grainy gray and threadbare like I have suddenly awoken to find myself in the middle of an old war documentary where the cinéma vérité is so forcibly subjective that it is utterly satanic. It then breaks into a black metal guitar solo so thin and dissonant that it would make Varg envious. It's got a quite folky accent to it made especially so by a galloping trot beat from the drums. And then the song transitions into a Popol Vuh like melancholy synth passage before reprising the solo and lead rhythm. This is a very powerful song so vivid it's scary. It's a ghastly fever dream of terror and war evil.

Carpathian Windspirit is a somber instrumental. It's the eye of the storm. Literally. It has slow ambient riffs with the sound of a torrent wind in the background. The Pagan Mountain has the most evil black metal growl to ever start a song. And then it breaks into a furious gust of blast beats racing against raw riffs. I must say the vocal performance on this song is extremely frightening. I also can't forget that evil croaking scream that Lord Xaquoreth does at the first transition. It swoops right down at you from the sky with a sickening exhilaration. But that's not all. The Pagan Mountain is very epic too. It slows down to display an epic panorama deploying patented Bathory choral synths. The track wallows in an atmosphere of Teutonic might and war wrought destruction at the same time. It felt like some half bombed out temple from a classical painting standing over a sea of rubble after being shelled by Tiger Tanks. And then we have the last song ...Blood For Immortality. It's pretty mid-paced and then there are slowed down slightly doomy passages that anchor it. It's very frenetic in tone and drifts in and about two tempos. The slowed down sections actually sound very similar to the Vikernes-penned Darkthrone track Quintessence as you will notice it also does so with that vocal delivery. As you remember, that song was quite the Celtic Frost-laden valley of heavy riffs. This Fullmoon song uses that style in short bursts before cranking it up to a speedier pace. By the way, the bass on this demo is put to very good use. On something like this, I hadn't expected it to be hardly any factor at all but it is. It lurks in the background on each track very noticeably but softly. Do you recall the bass work on Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells? Fullmoon takes that same rigid approach on United Aryan Evil and it contributes quite alot to the haunting atmosphere that I talked about.

It's hard for me to find anything at all to criticize about the black metal sound on United Aryan Evil. I don't believe in giving any album an easy ride when writing a review so perhaps the only knock I have on this demo is that the drumming on the last couple songs is a little predictable and tin-like at certain points. As a matter of fact, I was quite disappointed by the drumming on the fifth track at first but the album taken as a whole blew me away and now it's something I easily can overlook. I have the re-release that is the corrected version from the original tapes which were erroneously sped up. I suggest you make sure you have this proper recording of the album because while though I haven't heard the original, I can't imagine it sounding nearly as powerful.

I didn't think it could get much better than Lunar Poetry or In The Glare Of Burning Churches when it came to demos of black metal but here you have it. I'm a World War II buff and a metal die hard. This Fullmoon demo satisfies my appetite for both. On one hand, it has an authentic feel of World War II aggression but on the other hand, what makes great metal so appealing to some is that it can convey fantasy elements so vividly through music. Its escapist fare for the most particular of imaginative minds. Will Aryans really ride over a fallen Israel? Being that that nation is now armed to the teeth and probably nuke capable, of course not. Again, this demo is a portrait of war. A deadly fantasia. Nothing more, nothing less. If you cherish true epic black metal from Europe, I want you to get this.

When people mention black metal the inevitable direction the mind wanders is to the Norwegian black metal scene of the early nineties. It is my opinion that this period and this time saw the most creative, varied and best albums from the black metal genre and if not the entire metal genre as a whole. From the minimalist albums of Darkthrone, the complex and synth-laden work of Emperor, to the ambient and mesmerising songs of Burzum, there is such variation for just one part of a sub-genre.

So these are the bands that most people exploring the genre hear about and start exploring, and for good reason. However there are other bands from this period that were creating works just as good and with the equal amount of spirit, and searching for these bands is how I came across this demo, which I believe is one of the finest examples of black metal released.

I will admit I came across this release thorough hearing that Rob Darken of Graveland fame arranged some of the keyboards on this demo. As Graveland was a band I was getting into, especially the mesmerising “Thousand Swords”, I thought I would give this one a try.

The first thing you will notice is the very strange production. It is not really a harsh production, however it is very thin, with all the instruments washing over you creating one sound, despite every instrument being heard very easily. This is actually quite effective for the more ambient black metal releases as the sound should not be as jarring as the production necessary for the faster style.

This demo consists of an intro, an instrumental, an outro and three longer black metal tracks. The tracks are of good length so the demo is in fact just the length of a short album. All three of the tracks are composed absolutely brilliantly, consisting of mainly mid-paced black metal washing over you like an army through a vast landscape. Every riff heard seems to flow perfectly from the one before, meaning the music actually goes somewhere and remains interesting and fresh throughout. Also, as I mentioned, the keyboard is absolutely perfect, being used only when necessary (I’m looking at you, Emperor) to create an epic ambience that Darken is so excellent at achieving. The instruments are played capably, although every part is very simple, what makes the album so interesting is the dynamics of these compositions.

I must also mention the vocals. These are an acquired taste as they are performed in a croaked way rather than a shriek. Although this did take some getting used to, I came to realised that these kind of vocals are necessary for the music as a shriek may have interfered too much with the atmosphere, however this aggressive yet restrained croak intertwines with the music much more affectively in my opinion.

The shorter atmospheric tracks also serve good purpose here. Mainly being precursors of war sounds that add to the incredible atmosphere the album creates, the interlude also being a nice touch which has a well-fitting folk vibe to it. Strangely enough the whole demo has a folk vibe to it to me which works amazingly when summoning up imagery of large battlefields and epic battles.

Overall I would say this is definitely one of the best black metal releases of the early nineties and if you have the chance to pick it up I thoroughly recommend it for its originality, incredible atmosphere and some of the best song construction I have ever heard.