异族圣歌 / Pagan's Hymn

Martyrdom hail from BeiJing, China and play a particularly raw style of BM. Consisting of two members (apparently), here we have seven Chinese "hymn"s of Pagan hate (and an Emperor cover labeled as "Hails To Emperor"). Odd nature aside, this has its ups and downs, and in various ways is a fairly unique release despite its obvious failings.

Musically this is a pretty interesting album, but production wise... this is fairly tasteless. I'd assume that unless you've got an equalizer you can adjust, that this record would be worthless due to its ultra high pitched guitar tone. Maybe something was lost from the master tape, or just a crude production took place (most likely), but these guys are really sold short of their potential on this.

The riffs are some what similiar to early Emperor, and maybe even some early Gorgoroth. Generally, they perform simplistic melodics with in their straight forward chorded blasting. The guitars get a little sloppy, mostly in the arpegios, but not too bad. The drums sorta drift between audible, and lost in the mix, which really hurts them... plus they use a drum machine which kills alot of the dynamics in parts which require precise accenting and what not. The acoustic riffs were a nice change, but to little to make up for anything (but actually contain a nice production sound). Vocals werent too bad, but are way too low in the mix, and just dont carry anything individualistic about them at all.

Overall, this isnt really worth seeking, nor buying (probably not even DLing). But, if you can get past the vile production, and really wanna hear another band that sounds similiar to some early Norwegian Black Metal than this just might be for you.