Úder pohanského hnevu

Algor is in the business of making vicious and barbaric black metal. The album Úder Pohanského Hnevu is a gritty throwback to the days of early black metal when all you needed was evil riffs, barks of blasphemy, and production like sandpaper to make the most evil kind of metal around at the time. The bare-bones approach and tendency to mix a warlike tempo with a bit of atmosphere every now and again calls to mind music like the works of (very early) Behemoth, albeit with a savage pathos that was more directly aggressive and spiteful than that band was during their black metal phase. This is straight-faced black metal that spits up a mouthful of tar in your eye. They don't reinvent the wheel here, but Algor works as well as they can with just the basics.

Algor delivers a barrage of cult hate similar to how the old Norwegian masters or the then emerging Polish bands would do so. There's not much of a stylistic difference between Algor and their influences. They'd be very hard to pick out from a throng of other black metal bands, but they'd play with enough ferocity to stand tall on their own. If all you came for was a no-frills assault, this will fit the bill quite well. This stuff focuses heavily on emulating an old style whilst doing so very well, and with a lot of spite.

Aggression and adhering to the true style are the main factors on Úder Pohanského Hnevu. The album starts off in a standard enough fashion, with blasting drums, swirling tremolo riffs, and vicious snarls that lash through the music like a whip. Then, "Vládca zimnej krajiny" comes on and suddenly they break out the acoustic guitar and give us a somber rhythm that later explodes into a vicious barrage of tremolos and blast beats that maintain the original acoustic rhythm to the song, giving it a solid main melody to work with. Many of the songs after this go for very evil main melodies that are hidden within the swirling tremolos and the atmosphere of biting rage. This continues with many of the main riffs forming a solid backbone for the rest of the music, and with the rest coherently diverging from that to make this album deliver a real bite.

If you want some metal of the blackened variety that stays true to the old sound, while exercising a vicious streak as sharp as the Carpathians and honing old school riff-craft with tenacity, this is one yo look out for. Algor may sound like a rather standard band at first, and to a degree they are, but their talent for riffing plus shredding melodies makes them something worthy of holding attention. Noteworthy songs would include "Vládca zimnej krajiny" and "Slovanska krv" as they make the most of combining hints of melody with scathing blasts. If you want a "back to basics" take on black metal, this is a good album to turn to.

"Uder Pohanskeho Hnevu" is the debut album of this cult and promising Slovakian black metal band. I remember the time when I heard this album for the first time and I was excited after the first hearing of the whole album. And I must admit that I does not happen often.

This album does not bring anything new or original but still absolutely noble and credible in their doing. "Uder Pohanskeho Hnevu" offers a variety of catchy and deadly precision riffs, aggressive rhythmics and also healthy dose of superb solos and atmospheric and astral moments. Also Aldaron's vocals are great and his works with all string-instruments together with Slavfist's drum blasting are just amazing. I think all the instruments are played with conviction enough to raise the dead. If you like old wave of nineties black metal period, you couldn't be disappointed with this release and I am afraid that this album of unknown Slovak band is even better than many veterans.

The production is raw, lo-fi but still clear and powerful. There is nothing to complain about. And that just sums the whole recording. Algor offers 47 minutes of one of the best debuts ever. This album is like passage to the old times when the woods have been covered with the snow from northern lands.

Although the whole album is great, the biggest highlight for me is song called "Vladca zimnej krajiny". This song has been spinning in my head for many days. Yes, this is that good... a sure to be classic! Get it at all cost.

When it comes to Black metal, you can rely on the constituent parts of what was formerly Czechoslovakia to bring the quality to your speakers, with Slovakia’s Algor being one of my personal favorites for a good few years now. This, their only full length album (the title of which translates roughly to ‘The Strike of Pagan Wrath’), gives a raw display of hate-filled bile worthy of any frostbitten black metal collection.

All the tracks have a highly melodious streak, whilst managing to retain the soaring level of detestation thanks to the excellent vocal work (and the bitter harshness of the Slovak lyrics being spat forth). Riffs flow incredibly well into each other, forming a triumphant grandiose feeling from the ten relatively short tracks, occasionally incorporating acoustic guitar interludes that fit into the barrage perfectly. Those looking for atmosphere created by nothing but riffs, drums, bass and vocals are certainly in for a treat – this album is brimming with a dark energy that manages to revitalize as much as it does impress. For me, the highlight of the album is “V objati lesnej rise” - a perfect example of a fantastically put pieced together song that has a richness and quality of the very best in the field.

As a whole there’s something incredibly deep about every second of this release, and do you know what? I think it might just be pure old-fashioned authenticity. If you can track this down, it’s highly recommended from me.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com

What’s up with the region formerly known as Czechoslovakia? It seems a breeding ground for black metal bands that kick ass like nothing else. Algor from current Slovakia is no exception to this. One look at the cover and booklet should be enough to show what Algor is all about. Stylised logo with inverted cross, everything in monochrome, photo’s of two corpsepainted guys standing around in the snow and everything written in Slovak. Yes, this has all the hallmarks of black metal of the cult variety and as always this can mean one of two things: it’s either a mediocre rip-off of an old Norwegian band that has no personality whatsoever, or it draws its influences from the older bands and creates something in that tradition that is artistically relevant, has personality and evolves the genre.

I’m thankful to report that Algor falls indisputably in the second category, like basically everything coming from their region. While this two-man band is undoubtedly influenced by Darkthrone and Master’s Hammer (which Czech/Slovak band isn’t?), they take that influence and make something original from it.

Every song here is of the epic variety, with one or two core riffs that return multiple times in each song with a whole bunch of different singularly occuring riffs to form bridges and give different textures to the core ideas, thus forming distinct musical narratives. Each song here has its own personality, each song is memorable and the emotions expressed shift as much (and as effortlessly) as the riffs which express them. Besides their ability to evoke emotions and create epic narratives, the riffs on Úder… simply rock! Anyone not banging his/her head after the first song has properly started, is either deaf, incapacitated or has no musical taste. The types of riffs go from harsh, fastpicked notes to traditional mid-paced heaviness, high-pitched lead/solo sections, tastefully overlayed accoustics, and more. The range of styles employed here is quite large, albeit due to the excellent flow and execution of it all it never sounds like a patchwork. Basswork is erratic, sometimes just following the guitars in the background, at others occupying its own place with interesting progressions. Further adding to the severe rear-kicking is the fantastic drumwork, which sits in that perfect zone between boring blasting and pretentious fucking-around. It’s varied, compliments the atmosphere invoked by the riffs and is executed without mistakes. Only negative is the slightly tinny sound of one of the drums, but that soon becomes unnoticable. The vocals are a commanding harsh shout-type deal, relatively similar to Nocturno on ‘A Blaze…’. As with most Czech/Slovak bands, all lyrics are sung in their native tongue giving it extra authenticity. The production is absolutely perfect for this type of release, everything is audible while sounding absolutely harsh, with the lead guitar having that razor-sharp buzzsaw sound and the rythm guitar sounding nicely heavy, and a clean bass guitar that’s audible when it needs to be and otherwise gives added depth to the rythm-guitar. Drums are quite good too, although as mentioned one piece of the drumset has a tinny sound which can be slightly annoying in some of the faster parts.

This was quite the surprise for me as this is one of those completely underexposed bands, that I checked out based on those black and white pictures, expecting an interesting but derivative Darkthrone worshipping band, with it turning out to become one of my favorite purchases this year. It doesn’t revolutionise the genre, but it does evolve an existing substyle, the varied ‘A Blaze…/Ritual’ type and it does so with style.

Recommended for fans of the mentioned two albums that influenced this as well as the Czech/Slovak scenes in general.