Unveiling the Essence

I cannot understand why some groups, Cirith Gorgor in this case, are considered “second class ones” even if they’ve always released very good, if not excellent, albums. This thing drives me mad and it's even worse when I listen to other crappy groups in this genre, far more famous and worshipped by the critics…it’s a weird world… luck is always an important help in some occasions and this group have never had a lot of it. It’s a pity because their albums really destroy in intensity and songwriting.

Yes, intensity and songwriting because exactly for this they are a non-common-group in the black metal field. They are above lots of other groups around the world and I can say this without fear of being too generous with them. They deserve it. In this album they are far better than most of the Marduk's albums for example. The most interesting things we can find in this great band are the intelligence and the technique mixed with a power of execution that few groups have. The epic-distorted guitar sound is like a wall for the violence and the drummer is one of the best I’ve ever heard in black metal. He is not just fast and brutal but also technique, versatile and extremely various without losing anything in impact.

“Conquering The Shadowworld” is a very impressive opener with the guitar lines always violently epic, giving you the idea of running to the battlefields, while the continue blast beats are like the clash of steel and leather during the battle. The screams remind me a bit those of Abbath but less distorted and extreme. Even the singer seems like to force you to go fighting with epic and violent lyrics. “Bellum Germanicum” and the beginning of the title track are pure massive epic slabs of black metal. Terrific and exalting.

The few solos are a mix of speed and “melody”, always referred musically to war themes and battles, while the good alternance of growls to screams in “Northern Spell Of Warcraft” is very well done. The melodic guitar work in “A Twilight Serenade” is excellent with a great refrain, followed by the uncontrollable rage of “The Stormrulers” and, to finish, the melodies of “Visions Of A Dark Past” (a sort of “quiet after the storm” song). It is very hard to describe each song and each interesting riff or melody…they are all great. All in all this is a great album, worth owning.

Recommended to every black (and not only) metal fan who likes TRUE GOOD MUSIC in this genre. Total support for Cirith Gorgor.

A tricky one this. It's not quite pure black metal - norsecore elements can be very prominently heard, especially in the rhythm department. Blastbeats abound, but not in the sloppy, minimalistic Transilvanian Hunger sense. The drumming here is incredibly technical and precise, yet maintains a sense of flow that marks it as substantially less robotic than usual. Meanwhile, the riffs vary from soaring tremolo picked chaos to thrash-inspired streams of powerchords and even a few virtuoso solo's here and there.

What I haven't mentioned yet, is that this is a full-force blast of intensity. Words are really quite inadequate to describe the level of sheer violence Cirith Gorgor displays in their music. Marduk's Panzer Division is a fucking Pansy Division compared to this ridiculous onslaught of sheer brutality. The opener "Conquering The Shadowworld" is a devastating barrage of savagery, then the title track gives you slightly more breathing room. After that comes one of the album's two masterpieces - the overall midpaced, triumphant epic "Bellum Germanicum", which infuses some folky twists into the gnarly riff assault. Plenty of harmonies abound throughout this stuff, the guitars interweaving and creating far more depth than your average Darkthrone worship. The vocals are standard rasps, nothing special, but very well done since the lyrics are often quite discernable even when he's shrieking away and actually manages to keep up with the faster moments - a rare thing, since many Norsecore vocalists tend to come across as incoherent when attemping to match the pace set by the music.

Then we get "Northern Spell Of Warcraft", which is simply a kick in the face. Only 3 minutes long, it's the most vicious song here. Then the album's other epic, "Into A Nightly Silence" reaches a crescendo of majestic splendour, switching effortlessly between blasting nastiness and slower, "triumphant strut" parts, and throwing in a blistering harmonized lead break in the middle. The next two tracks fall under it's shadow, good songs in their own right but failing to match what they follow - perhaps "Into A Nightly Silence" should've been saved for track 7, thus giving "A Twilight Serenade" and "The Stormrulers" more room to impress. Nevertheless, there's certainly no letup in quality. Then the album concludes with a graceful acoustic outro, winding down and ending with the same melody line which kicked off the first song - quite a nice touch.

There's also one of those annoying hidden tracks tacked on the pre-track before the first song - a ripping cover of Darkthrone's monumental classic "in The Shadow Of The Horns". Words cannot describe how much I FUCKING HATE these hidden pre-tracks. My DVD player is incapable of playing it, and on players that can read it, if you accidentally hold the reverse-search button too long, it reaches the beginning and automatically reverts to the beginning of track 1. It should've just been put on the end of the CD as a bonus track, but I guess they wanted to be clever or something. 5 points taken off for this pointless annoyance.