The Eyes of the Beast

To tell you the truth, the way I discovered Astrofaes was when I was at my local black metal store where I found their album "The Eyes of the Beast" filed into Nokturnal Mortum's section. Thinking that it was a side project by NM I immediately picked it up. However, although this band doesn't have much to do with Nokturnal Mortum, they will certainly appeal to fans of the band as well as the rest of the Ukranian black metal scene.

Astrofaes is a band which actually features a member of Drudkh, which you should already know is one of the best black metal bands out there today. Knowing this information should already tell you that Astrofaes is something that is top quality and abundant with nature-inspired atmosphere. Similar to their fellow Ukranians, Nokturnal Mortum, the band plays a thrashier blend of raw black metal that maintains a rich mood throughout every song. Eyes of the Beast grips you from beginning to end with enough intensity and atmosphere to keep focus on. There isn't a boring moment during the album's entire duration.

Astrofaes not only set a powerful tone on this album but they also display some stunning musicianship to accompany it. There are some incredible riffs to be found here along with terrific melodies. Also the drumming is very interesting, especially in the first song, combining normal blast beats with some strange drum patterns. The vocals are amazing as well. They remind me a little bit of Raven from 1349, except more clear. The singer has a very clean kind of black metal scream. I'm guessing that Astrofaes has the same vocalist as Drudkh because they sound almost identical. Therefore if you've heard that band, you know what to expect on this album. However, unlike Drudkh, the vocals are used much more in this recording than on say Autumn Aurora. I can't describe how talented this band is for being able to express a similar atmosphere to Drudkh while still keeping their own different style.

Along with the stellar musicianship, Astrofaes throw in some battle and nature sounds that expand the atmosphere even further. You can imagine yourself standing atop an icy mountain over a huge battlefield when listening to The Eyes of the Beast. The superb artwork that graces the album potrays the mood of the music perfectly. It is a very white atmosphere that is still meant to be listened to in the dark, if you know what I mean.

The production is very good, raw yet clear. All the instruments are audible, a similar sound once again to Drudkh. It captures the essence of the music in true black metal fashion while remaining completely listenable, setting a cool wintery atmosphere to the record.

Overall, if you are a fan of Hate Forest, Drudkh, Burzum, Nokturnal Mortum, Empyrium, and the rest of the nature-inspired black metal bands, Astrofaes is definately for you. The Eyes of the Beast is amazing to listen to alone late at night while the sun begins to rise. It'll really put you in an undescribable mood. You must pick this release up if you're looking for some catchy and atmospheric raw black metal. It's a magnificent experience.

This is a pretty cool album overall, mostly because of the interesting riff work, and the singers voice. The guitar sound is unique enough and overall fits the whole theme of this release. The package (layout, art work, etc.) is another high light (like all the bands releases) that capture a certain mood, or feeling through the imagery, which is quite fitting for the music on here.

The vocals, ranging from death metal like prolonged grunts to a more predominant black metal vocal assaulght, (more voice than ever present screaming if that makes sense) are done very well, also adding alot the the good qualities that this album has. Lyrically the topics pretty much stick to the woodsy, paganistic, nature fueled prose about the past, and certain dark images they choose to elaborate on, but really are some what standard for the music.

The guitars have a great production for being underground Black Metal, and offer up interesting veiws into what these musicians are fully capable of. There is alot palm muted, early paced death thrash, riffs mixed in with your more than average straight forward traditional black metal style chord progressions. Lots of cool arpeggiated rythms, and just very powerfull melodies overall make the guitar work on here a bit better then average.

There are many interesting aspects to this album in general, for instance on the fourth track (The Solstice), near the end, they do some cool background tracks over the song with an acoustic guitar, and roaring wind sounds that really enhances the ambience of this song imparticular. Some cool battle clips are on here also that are short enough to not bore you since so many genre remniscent bands have done so.

The druming is quite the aggravaited battery blasting and will keep you feeling the rythm through out your listen, with a very old school, well recorded, and upfront sound. This isnt overtly a polished album, but comes out with a nice even leveled sound, and an actually damn fine sounding production job considering the style the bands plays. You can hear the old school influences which range from black, death, and thrash metal to some very cool mixing of each. A more than decent album, not the most original in any way, but still entertaining, and the replay value is there. Two devil horns up.