Altered States of Divinity

Great album, the vocals sound a little bit like Galder via Old Man's Child now Dimmu Borgir. The production is a little bit raw but still the riffs are monumental. Especially for a first LP. I'm really liking this band from the get-go. I'm not too fond of black metal but there are some exceptions. This one definitely is I'm glad I was referred to this band. They are balls-out awesome. The music is what's my most memorable moments and the vocals mixed with them. The drums were mixed in good here, too. From start to finish I have no complaints. This album was release 15 years ago and I'm bringing it alive again.

To black metal lovers, they've probably been made aware of this band years ago, but only 2 feedbacks on it. Now this is a third. I look forward to more LP's in the future. They do have a 2018 release, but I haven't heard it yet. Been busy blasting away at the past. This is a great debut album and I'm sure most of their albums are to this caliber of total awesome music. The album is about 37 minutes in length but I enjoyed every moment of it! The raw sound is pretty killer making the whole atmosphere killer as well. I'll have to tune in to their more recent material, absolutely! The one blew my hair back though.

The production as I covered was raw but good. I felt that the tempos were up and down and the voice hardcore. Aside from the vocals sounding like Galder, the music is way their own. A lot of riffs tremolo picked and compositions that were worthwhile. I'm sure that they put a lot of effort into making this LP. This is their debut and their debut definitely hit home with me! It was intense to say the least. Some clean vocals especially on the last track but not that much fluctuating on the whole album. From start to finish (with minor altercations) the album is intense and brutal. But as I said the tempos variated.

If you've never heard this band and you're a metal fan, check this out! I'm going to have to check out their newer material, but this one really made a dent in my brain. The band is wholly original and kick ass black metal raw as all hell! It's a hard one to find on CD. But pretty much everything is digital now so you can find this on Spotify or I'm sure YouTube as well. The latter is where I got this one. Check it out because you won't have many debut LP's like this in the black metal category. It simply rips and is worth taking the time to listen to. I would say I only took off from some consistency in the riff-writing, but nevertheless monumental!

I still remember when I came across Kriegsmaschine's "Altered State of Divinity", shortly after the album was released. It was recommended to me by a friend and since our musical tastes for black metal were pretty similar, I decided to buy the album. Well, I can honestly say that I don't regret that at all, as this is one of the finest Polish black metal albums I've ever heard. It's a true masterpiece of sinister and undivine art. You may probably know that Kriegsmaschine pretty much shares the line up with Mgla, another great BM band, but musically both bands try to walk different blackened paths. And thus I'm not able to pick up, which of those two bands I liked more, I can tell you though that both are fuckin' amazing. And "Altered State of Divinity" is just an excellent debut full length album.

Kriegsmaschine previous recording, "A Thousand Voices", was OK, but it's not even half as great as "Altered State of Divinity". I think there were many things to be improved and luckily with this album Kriegsmaschine did everything better. They improved much their songwriting, used better ideas and more intriguing song structures, new vocalist turned out to be just incredibly good and also the production on "Altered State of Divinity" also has been bettered. Wow, they did try hard this time! I’m impressed.

The album is opened by the furious and uncompromising riffing and blast of "Ma'aseh Bereshit", which even reminds me the likes of Marduk, but that's basically the only such mercilessly fast part here, as the rest of the side A of the vinyl is played in surprisingly slower tempos. Kriegsmaschine concentrates there more on creating a specific atmosphere, than on blowing our heads off, but that's great in my opinion, because right after "Ma'aseh Bereshit" slows down, the music just becomes more interesting. The riffing is more diverse, with plenty of breaks, there are even some sort of sorrowful parts here and there, but the effect is just awesome. Each of the three songs from side A catches the attention with something cool... "Ma'aseh Bereshit" has this great slow and as I said melancholic finish (with well audible bass parts). "Altered State of Divinity" turns out to be the best song from the whole LP, with some amazing parts, great riffing and some brilliant vocal parts from M., including a chorus part sang with a clean voice (and the lyrics in that part is Latin written, what only underlines the whole mood). M. is a new vocalist of course, as Leatherface is no more in the band, but I can only agree to this decision, as M.'s vocals are 666% more interesting, with plenty of various styles within the classic black metal shriek and with really good arrangements (sometimes his voice reminds me Mortuus from Marduk / Funeral Mist by the way). Yeah, this guy did an excellent job. Some riffs are slightly melodic, but the overall feeling of the music from side A is just dark and sinister. Meanwhile "Through the Eyes of the Blind" delivers more classic black metal riffing, in the vein of early Gorgoroth or Darkthrone, but of course with a personal touch of Kriegsmaschine.

Side B also starts with pretty fast tempos of "Beyond the Veil", with surprisingly Kampfar-esque riff in the beginning and again some agonising and unusual singing of M. ("The laughter of angels is in the continuous litany of the agonized newborn, perished in humiliation, torture and abuse..." - what a great line!). "Prism" is very close to the recent Marduk albums like "Plaguewielder", in the beginning it is just very fast riffing with furious screams of M., but later the songs turns into more diverse styles. The biggest challenge of side B comes with "Nihilation", which is 9 minutes long song and starts pretty typically, but then Kriegsmaschine putted some noisy samples, etc, what gave a slightly chaotic and disturbing effect. This idea reminds me of Gehenna's "Ad Arma Ad Arma" from "Malice", in many ways. Finally the whole LP is finished by Marduk-like blasts of "Kerigma", maybe the least interesting song from the whole album, but still solid. After listening to side B, I must underline though that I liked side A more, maybe because it was played in mid paced tempos more and it didn't have so many similarities to Marduk.

I have no doubts that if Kriegsmaschine was Swedish or Norwegian, then "Altered State of Divinity" would have been praised and called cult by all those black metal maniacs around the world, who only focus on those two scenes. Unfortunately, I have an impression that the label that released the album, Todeskult Records, didn't promote it well enough and definitely this LP didn't reach the status is was destined to and which it deserved to get. Hmm, who would care about some Polish black metallers haha? But that’s a mistake! And yeah, stupidity also, but that's fact that the underground often supports terribly mediocre Scandinavian bands, underestimating those real jewels from other countries. Fuck that anyway. Those, who maniacs were smart enough I bet know Kriegsmaschine well by now and "Altered State of Divinity" is in their collection.

This is an album worth a sin.

Standout tracks: "Altered State of Divinity", "Through the Eyes of the Blind", "Beyond the Veil"

I must admit I had some reservations about this album before first giving it a spin. For one thing, Kriegsmaschine and Mgła are largely the same band, featuring many of the same members (notably, M fronts both groups, Darkside drums for both bands and Daren formerly drummed in both projects, including on this album). Both are pure black metal bands with theistic satanic lyrical themes. Long story short, this seemed like essentially the same project under a different name, so despite how much I like Mgła as it is, I was worried that this would be more of the same. Thankfully, Kriegsmaschine are a very different band than Mgła with a substantially different sound. The two complement one another quite nicely, so this is something Mgła fans (and fans of straightforward black metal in general) should give a listen but should be wary that this isn't going to sound much like the members' other band.

While Mgła are more subtle and focus more on subdued beauty and sorrowful melodies, Kriegsmaschine are much more aggressive and employ melodies that communicate a feeling of strength and pride more than anything. There are some incredibly powerful songs here, such as the standout title track, the pounding "Through the Eyes of the Blind" (which very well could have inspired Beherit's "Demon Advance") and the triumphant "Nihiliation." These songs contain both a wealth of memorable - if fairly simplistic - riffs, and some fist pumping melodies.

The first thing you'll likely notice about this album is the incredibly prominent bass. That's not to say the guitars don't sound powerful in their own right, but the bass has an awesome growl to it that gives these riffs an extra helping of assertiveness. The opening riff of "Through the Eyes of the Blind" is as good an example as any, with its pounding, propulsive bass rumble. The guitar tone is nice and saturated with distortion, and the two guitar tracks on either side are quite distinct and clear. The main riffing style employed on the album is a heavy, plodding march type of rhythm, though sometimes dissonant chords are picked out in arpeggio, there are a few thrashier sections (the end of "Prism") and there are the occasional blasting sections accompanied by suitably fast, aggressive riffs and tremolo lines (though a 1349 album this is not). The production on the drums is a bit odd, as the cymbals, snare and bass drums are crystal clear in the mix but the toms are soaked in reverb and sound like they're being played off in the distance, which somewhat diminishes their impact. This issue with the toms aside, the production is excellent, with the instrumentation cutting like a knife while the reverb-drenched vocals howl with more than enough fury.

The vocals are quite impressive throughout the album, as M is here joined by bassist Destroyer on vocal duties rather than handling everything himself as he does in Mgła. Some songs use a more traditional black metal rasp, sometimes traded back and forth between the two vocalists. Both are more than capable at their craft and have distinct voices. An additional treat, though, is the inclusion of two other vocal styles. The first is a sort of emphatic talking, soaked in reverb, that has all of the delivery of an enthusiastic speech at a political rally. These vocals do have a musical quality about them and, as they're actually delivered by a band member, they mesh together with the riffs better than any sample possibly could. This type of vocal is used throughout the album, but for quick reference listen to the middle section of "Prism." Finally, there are some nice, harmonized clean male vocals that carry a lot of the prideful melodic weight I mentioned earlier. Again, reference the title track for some excellent use of this technique.

It could be that M has settled into a more subdued (albeit breathtaking) writing style in Mgła, since nearly all of that project's releases have come out since this album was released, but I think the presence of a full-time bassist also likely influenced proceedings. Not only is the bass itself incredibly prominent, but the riffing itself is more in-your-face than it is in Mgła. The songwriting on this release is more than adequate, with a few particularly excellent standout tracks as mentioned before but none that bore or that could even be described as filler. This comes highly recommended to just about any black metal fan, but particularly to those looking for assertive, prideful black metal with plenty of solid riffs and a strong sense of melody that's not the sole domain of keyboards (there are none here), as is all too often the case.