Iberian Heathen Chants

Folk/Viking/Pagan Black metal has never really worked for me. Admittedly, I haven't heard all that much, but with the exception of Moonsorrow, it generally seems to be a poorly done mash up of genres, with the metal and the folk diluting each other's impact. While Cyhiriaeth aren't exactly the pinnacle of this genre, they do a fairly decent job of delivering the folk over some solid, if fairly unoriginal black metal.

The first thing you notice is the terrible production. Well, it is black metal you may say. But really, I don't think that's a valid excuse at all. The super reverbed vocals are intensely annoying, and the extremely thin, lo-fi sound of the folk instruments sound terrible. I hope I never hear lo-fi bagpipes again. Of course, I know it's a demo, but that doesn't mean it has to sound this bad. Does it have to polished to death? No! But it would be good for there to be just a little bit of bass. Another terrible thing is the huge amount of digital clipping in this album. If it was analog tape distortion, fine. But digital clipping does not sound nice.

The second thing you'll notice is that the songs are fairly decent. There's plenty of good riffs here for you all to sink your teeth into, and the folk parts aren't all that terrible. Laying in the Shadows has some sweet black metal riffing. before unexpectedly going into a jaw dropping bit of folk/pagan stuff. It's quite surprising and beautiful, and even when the guitars come back in it still sounds great. Sons of the Honourless God is an intense slab of black metal with some nice screaming and lots of blast beats that you all love, with a few nice mid tempo sections that rock a fair bit. Unfortunately, the other two songs on this album aren't quite as good, with Premonition of Crows sounding fairly awkward with the bagpipes over the guitars, and melodic respite of Through the Melancholy Forest sounding fairly anti climatic and quite cheesy.

So what we have here are two awesome songs, two fairly mediocre songs, (not including the intro) and really bad production. These guys definetly have some potential, and while they didn't fulfill it in this demo, their full length should be good. (I know it has better production, for one thing.) So while I haven't heard their full length, maybe you should pick that up instead. This band has a bright future, that's for sure.