The Purest Cold Precision

Blodulv:
This is my first and last taste of the incredibly mediocre and insipid Blodulv. An easy way to sum up Blodulv is that their music is a myriad of dull, mid-paced Black Metal which plods along and bores the fuck out of me within a few minutes. This, paired with the weak, powerless drums (they sound like a machine, but I think Blodulv actually have a human drummer), the scratchy, trebley guitar and the average, slightly distorted vocals, form an extremely generic band that I can forget within a day. Think Gorgoroth, but shitter and slightly slower. I think the only good thing going for them is the OK distorted bass sound. Unfortunately, it's drowned out by everything else most of the time and is only prominant in one of the songs during one of the riffs.

I honestly can't remember much of the songs without listening to them again. The only truly good part of the Blodulv side occurs during Dreadnought. Suddenly, the guitars stop and a long scream leads into a bass breakdown that is a mirror of what the guitar was playing beforehand. The guitars then emphasise the riff by playing power chords at the chord changes. Then, of course, comes the tremolo picking and some harmonising, before reverting to the guitars emphasising the chord changes again. That's it. The whole Blodulv side and that's the only riff that actually makes me want to listen to their music. Naturally, that riff is played to death and even repeated during the next song (yes, I'm listening to it as I write this). I think they realised that it was the only decent idea they had.


I'll end this review by simply saying that Blodulv are one of the most generic and boring bands you're ever likely to hear. Not necessarily bad, but so dull it's almost coma inducing.



Aska:
Aska improve on their Förintelsehymner release here. The guitars, while still having a strange rotary-style effect, have a more powerful sound with the harmonised sections remind me of Silencer. There's a bit more sustain on them and not as much decay. This rotary sound during the slow/mid-paced section creates a very macabre, threatening atmosphere, which thankfully is the majority of the time. There are faster sections occasionally placed between the slow/mid-paced riffs which is something that Aska needs to stop them becoming a plodding monotone band.

The drums, which I believe is a drum machine, sounds very real. So much so that if you didn't know any better you would assume that it was in fact a human. However, there is little to get excited about as the only style of drumming that would fit Aska is the Burzum style kick-snare-kick-snare and the odd blast-beat during the faster sections. Still, it sounds better than Blodulv and, as mentioned above, fits the music perfectly.

The vocals are the only average thing about Aska's sound. They are the usual slightly distorted vocals. Luckily, there aren't too many vocal sections and they aren't too high in the mix and blend in with the guitars somewhat when they do feature, which is personally how I like my distorted vocals.


Aska's demo is an improvement on Förintelsehymner, yet small improvements (vocals maybe???) could be made, I'm sure they will be, and I'll definitely be acquiring any future releases. It's a shame that he had to release this as a split with Blodulv and not as another demo or EP, as the Blodulv side surely drags the overall quality and worth of this split down (the score at the top is a total of how much worth both sides of the split have together, hence the low score. Needless to say, Aska's half ruled).