Desecration

The previous review for “Desecration”, Pest’s full-length debut from 2003, is titled “Darkthrone worship or rip off” and another reviewer also mentioned the Norwegian duo in his headline. Of course, Pest act in close proximity to the role models who saw a blaze in the northern sky. Already the artwork follows the aesthetics that Darkthrone’s first black metal album established. The number of six tracks also indicates the spiritual connection from Pest to Fenriz and Nocturno Culto and so it comes as no surprise that there are musical similarities as well.

The material commutes between slow-, mid- and fast-paced sections, but the single songs do not like tempo shifts. They are either cold or hot, but they don’t like to change the temperature. From this follows that songs like the pretty slowly flowing “Hours of Eternity and Death” are not overly exciting in terms of velocity and the decent yet unspectacular guitar work also does not trigger enthusiastic cheers. But honestly speaking – and I know I am pretty alone in this – I never fell in love with “Ablaze in the Northern Sky”. Its ingenious title promised much more than the music was able to keep, just my five cents. In contrast, Pest conquer the black spots of my heart with pieces like the comparatively furious “Dark Northern Winters”. It is exactly as generic as its name, but I don’t care. I love black metal for what it is, no more, no less.

The album sounds raw. The guitars have a profound, deep tone and the guttural vocals emphasize the Nordic origin. No doubt, the lead singer must be a Scandinavian troll in rage. Anyway, he gives the album a big portion of vileness. Mission fulfilled. This is not to say that the instrumental section lacks negative vibes. In particular the belligerent “I Am the Plague” (nice idea to put the climax on the last position of the track list) spreads life-denying coldness and whenever Necro nags the title, I have no doubt that he really is the plague. By the way, the final song closes the cycle in terms of speed, because the opener also prefers rapid rhythms. However, I don’t think that “Ninth Nocturnal Departure” was a good selection for the opening position, because its guitar work seems to be borrowed by Darkthrone, to put it politely. Moreover, the following “Commanding Armageddon” sounds like the little brother of “Quintessence”. I agree that the Swedish duo has gone a step too far here.

However, if we forget the lack of originality for a moment, “Desecration” deserves a positive rating, because it breathes pure, solidly performed black metal. No gimmicks, no superfluous extras, just Scandinavian darkness which was inspired by artists who influenced an entire generation of black metal musicians. If this is the worst problem, then I can live with it.

Pest is a band, which I think is being rarely mentioned among the best Swedish black metal bands, and I cannot really understand why, as they have some truly solid albums in their discography. They have changed their style a little through the entire catalogue and in recent years they became more like sort of blackened thrash speed metal band or whatever you’ll call it, but their music gained a lot with that change. The recently released “The Crowning Horror” LP is just awesome… When I was listening to it I thought that I haven’t listened to the previous LPs of Pest for a while now, so I decided to exhume them and I started digging through Pest discography with their debut LP “Desecration”. This album has been unleashed in 2003 and my vinyl version is released by No Colours Records in nice gatefold cover, which looks very traditional for black metal record, speaking of its simple black / white (no colours mean something hehe) layout and austere look, with just a couple of band photos and usual gothic font. Yeah, definitely the “Desecration” is an example for typical Scandinavian black metal…

The music of Pest on “Desecration” is nothing more or less, but total Darkthrone worship. Obviously some riffs may have some similarities also to Hellhammer, Bathory, etc, but it is Darkthrone, which I think must have influenced Pest the most. Than can be heard in every song on the album and starts with similar production (which is rough, harsh, but also quite powerful and definitely not too poor, so you actually can hear all the instruments and what the band plays… and that is already a huge positive hehe), through the vulgar, croaky vocals of Necro (who sounds a lot like Nocturno Culto from Darkthrone mid era) and finishing off with the whole atmosphere of the music (dark, cold, grim and evil…) and the specific rhythms, riffs, song structures… Everything sounds like Darkthrone (occasionally also a little like Carpathian Forest). Is it a positive or negative thing, to sound so similar to one certain band and tick all the cliché boxes? Well, Pest definitely aren’t the only ones, who play like that, I can bring here Armagedda for instance, just to mention one, also Swedish band. But the point is that Armagedda managed to compose such album as “Only True Believers”, which is just KILLER, meanwhile I cannot say that “Desecration” is as good as “Only True…”. First off, the songs are fine, but not the best black metal pieces, which I have heard in my life. Secondly, sometimes “Desecration” is just boring and also the fact that such “Commanding Armageddon” sounds a lot (too much I would say) like “Hans syste vinter” won’t bring Pest an extra attention. It just isn’t good if you hear a song, which is almost like a cover, you know? The entire “Desecration” sounds like combination of “Transilvanian Hunger” and “Panzerfaust” and well, I can say that I can enjoy it from time to time, but as overall I think this is just more of a mediocre black metal record rather than one, which will hit the top spot.

I don’t wanna sound like some, who didn’t like it totally… I have no problems with “Desecration” in general and technically it is an album, which die hard, orthodox black metal maniacs will worship. But at the same time, if I can be objective, I just must say that it is solid, but mediocre LP… My favourite song is “Descending”, for its more atmospheric and sort of melancholic atmosphere and riffing; it is the only song, which hasn’t got such a strong impact of Darkthrone (instead it may have more of Burzum feeling to it)… and maybe because it differs from the rest of the album it also shines like a black jewel? From the other hand such “Dark Northern Winters” bores me almost to death… So, if you’re into classic black metal then get “Desecration”; you’ll love it. Otherwise, if you’re more demanding then you better stick to the Darkthrone classics. Personally I don’t mind listening to “Desecration” once every five years or more, but it definitely is not my favourite black metal record. And it’s far from being my Pest favourite record too.
Standout tracks: “Descending”
Final rate: 65/100

To my knowledge there are three Pests as well as a number of bands which are named Pest in their home language like the Finnish Vitsaus. Surprisingly most Pests are actually rather original.

This Pest is not. At least not on this release.
This is like a great melting pot of Darkthrone’s four classic albums, with a thicker production and a slight Swedish touch. It’s actually pretty fun guessing which riff is from which Darkthrone song. It could make for an excellent drinking game (‘that’s from Transilvanian Hunger!’ ‘no, doofus, it’s from Skald av Satan’s Sol!’ ‘Bah, what’s the difference?’ ‘Tsk, tsk, take an extra drink for punishment’).

Ahem. I was reviewing an album.

These guys are very enthousiastic and catchy I must say and… who the fuck am I really trying to kid here.This is almost a freaking covers cd with new titles and lyrics (which places it uncomfortably close to plagiarism). There are no, I repeat, NO riffs here which weren’t done already on Norway’s seminal early black metal albums.
The same goes for drum patterns.
The same goes for the freaking vocal lines!
Okay there is an exception. Track five is a Burzum song. Silly me, must have fallen asleep to miss that one.

Track three sounds like a mid-period Carpathian Forest song for a while, before turning into grindier Transilvanian Hunger worship. Then track four is 100% the same as Under a Funeral Moon’s title track, except the lyrics; which doesn’t mean I can’t sing along with the original lyrics, since the new lyrics are placed in such a way as to sound exactly like the old vocalizations. The second song is directly lifted from Panzerfaust (it’s the Celtic Frost rip-off that’s repeated twice on PF. It’s replayed almost note for note here).

Funny how the disc says ‘No trends!’ and ‘No compromise!’, since that is exactly what this album presents; trends and artistic compromises. This disc exemplifies everything wrong with ‘nowadays black metal’. They play their instruments well, sound good, are catchy, but aren’t doing anything which hasn’t already been done better by legions of predecessors.
I will mince no more words on this.
Next!

Kicking straight into some morbid hatefull riff this is truely a killer album. This is an over all prime example of great newer black metal, considering this album came out in 2003 (this being the bands second full length), and the band has only been around since 1997.
A pretty typical sound is observed when you first hear them, but none the less this is old school black metal the way it should be. Like the second song (Commanding Armageddon) which starts with a mid paced Celtic Frost type riff in the begining that just kinda goes and goes, and also I shall add the vocals really shine here, but then is followed by an almost Dissection sounding riff, which is then brought back to the original riff. Repetitive yes, but killer all the way through.
I can not say enough about how cool the guitar sound is on this. Its primitive yet full and properly distorted in my oppinion. No an over fixation on distortion, or treble has helped make this album more badass. The only problem is that the bass guitar is fairly indecipherable through out most tracks(yet again nothing new to black metal).
The fourth track (Dark Northern Winters) is another fast paced, speed picked vile offering. There are parts which remind me of Judas Iscariot, especially how the vocals are done in some parts, but the riffs are reminiscent also. Just brutal, barbaric, war metal.
The fifth track Descending is probally my favorite, it has some slower epic riffs, which then break into a very cool harmony speed picked over the chords, that are pretty original, kinda reminiscent of Inquisition but with a vastly different tone. For this song alone this worth finding.
All in all this is something most fans of true black metal would get into. There are many different aspects of this band and album which at the very least garner them higher respect than alot of other filler albums out there.