Kristkrossare

Blodulv are a young and relatively obscure (in many ways) Black Metal band hailing from Sweden, that for some reason grabbed my attention since I first heard of them. Wishing to check out their material, I ordered this demo tape before it was sold out, and immersed myself in deep listening. Right fro the start I was very surprised by what I heard, because this isn't what I had expected at all. There is no doubt that Blodulv play the dark and violent brand of Black Metal that has been associated to their monicker, but the way they do it sounds quite unique to my ears.
"Kristkrossare" consists of 7 songs, pretty ligethy for the genre, of what I could call "revised second-wave styled Black Metal"... which undeniably sucks as a label, and that's why I'm writing the rest of the review to give you a more accurate description.

You may have heard that Blodulv remind a bit of Gorgoroth, and I can confirm that. The riffs, the speed and even part of the recording's sound can be easily compared to the Norwegian masters of bleakness, but this is different... way different than anything I heard in the last years and got labelled as "Black Metal".
The first thing that hits the listener's ears is of course tha sound. It's raw and primitive, but at the same time very deep and full, and extremely cold. The guitars are distorted but not at all over-trebly and fuzzy, and the same goes for the bass - which at times, however, seems to disappear into nowhere, producing a rather noticeable lack of low end.
Then, there are the drums, or better, the drum machines. I've heard several raw Black Metal bands using drum machines lately, and Blodulv blows most of them out of the water with the utter precision and clean sound of their percussive assault; it seems that these guys have one of their members taking care of the drum sequences exclusively, and you can hear the result here. Finally the vocals, which are your tipical Black Metal rasp but filtered by a slight distortion taht fits perfeclty in the overall mood. Once again a comparison with Gorgoroth is possible, but Blodulv's vocalist (so far the band didn't reveal exactly who does what in the line-up) isn't as shrill and on the other hand sounds a bit more clear and coherent when it comes to articulating words. Think about the distorted vocals in Burzum's "Filosofem", but less trebly and shrill, and more aggressive, and you should get a pretty close impression of what Blodulv's screamer sounds like.

Moving on to the songs, the band has some pretty strong ideas which unfortunately are accompained by others which tend to fall short. Their approach is actually quite varied: the first two songs (the title track and "Waffen Blodulv 666"), for instance, effectively combine traditional Black Metal riffing with the band's cold, clinical sound and immediately command attention. But then, the repetitive factor of the single songs, which at times works extremely well in creating a trance-like, hypnotic effect (see "Muspels Söner"), becomes predictable and dangerously tedious as the album proceeds, to the point that I wonder how much the rich legth of the songs is to be considered a plus. The vaguely "mechanized" feel of the music gives no room for dynamic variations or subtle changes, and this is a big flaw for a band that relies on minimalism.
Still, the songs display quite a confident approach to songwriting, ranging from the "Transilvanian Hunger" worship of "Nordhornens Skugga" to the very odd riffing found in "Satans Skogar", and show the band's efficiency on slower tempos as well, like in the brooding "Träldom i Frostgrepp" or the long closing hymn "The Weeds of Satan", the only song not to feature Swedish lyrics.

When it's time to draw conclusion, I'd say this is a good debut effort from an original and promising band; in the stagnant Black Metal scene, Blodulv have the means to achieve memorable results if they can over the aforementioned weaknesses. Well worth checking out if you have the chance and are in a mood for something different.