Загинатиjот град

Once upon a time there was a German metal magazine called Deftone. Every now and then one of its issues saw the light of day and of course did it come with a sampler CD. Sometimes with some pleasant, sometimes with some extreme music, sometimes with more famous bands and sometimes with more obscure stuff. In 1998 it came to pass that Baltak appeared on it with the track Svetski Rat (World War) and it made click in my head from second one. Around this time the German Ablaze magazine provided the track Makedonska Phalanga (Macedonian Phalanx) as well as Svetot Moi (My Kingdom) from the succeeding album, but they were not able to create the same kind of fascination that the other one was able to. Even though I was already familiar with three compositions of two releases by Baltak, it took me several years to motivate myself to finally buy these albums; so much about the effect of samplers in metal magazines.

Anyway, Baltak's music is a smash in the face of all those whose idea of black metal is something with nice melodies, harmonies and concept. The music on Zaginatiot Grad is primitive, raw and nothing really special. Actually, a lot of things go wrong on this release. Take the drums for instance: the double-bass blasts eruptions are basically the only aspect you can hear of them, because their general play is drowned due to the thin production and thanks to the dominance of the guitars and vocals. Accordingly are these sudden bursts drawing a lot of attention towards them and are emphasized over excess. As this would appear over the whole course of the release and the band nearly keeps their fast and aggressive style of music -- the exceptions would be the opener and last track Sacrifice --, this flaw becomes something like a trademark and can therefore be referred to as being in favour of the band.

The basic conceptual approach has been shed light on in the previous paragraph in some respect, but some further exploration is necessary. When it comes to the song-writing, then the linearity of the songs need to mentioned as well as the overall simplicity of the music. Motives are repeated excessively, a lot of tremolo-picking is used and the band seems to feel comfortable with following one approach per song; i.e. no major breaks in the tempo. Despite this, the catchiness of the riffs is actually surprising and the ones used for Svetski Rat (World War) as well as Goram Vo Ogan (Burning in Fire) are actually quite cool. Minimalism can work in case it is executed well and Baltak did such on their second release. The harsh screams, work together fine with the icy atmosphere and thin sound; they increase the tension and are able to impress the listener with the extreme fashion in which they have been performed; rarely can such be found on a similar level in the black metal genre. Generally, a bass is a nice thing to have when it comes to black metal, but in case of this release it would ruin a good deal of the atmosphere. It appears in the background, though, but lacks of too much power to have a large impact and accordingly is it unable to work as a counterpoint to the guitars/vocals. Hence, these two facets together with the ever-present snare drums dominate the music; left aside the strange bursts of the bass-drum.

Actually, this release is a chaotic mess and this time it is not up the monotonous drums to ruin it. There are so many things going wrong here and it is even easy to point towards them as they reveal themselves to the listener nearly from second one, but all these flaws work together so neatly that one has to admire the approach presented here in some respect. The genre has not been reinvented on this release, but it offers music in a quality and way that makes it enjoyable despite its short-comings. The fraction of the black metal fans that might enjoy Zaginatiot Grad is not large, but to fans of the underground scene as well as those of raw and aggressive black metal this piece of Baltak can be recommended; maybe it is in their collection already.

The 20-page booklet (!) contains no lyrics but some insights on the history of Macedonia is given. Texts, illustrations and photos present the view of the band on this issue. Sadly, no references to or sources of the texts are given, to enable to reader to explore the history of this country more in-depth or to verify/falsify the points presented respectively.

Recommended: Svetski Rat (World War), Goram Vo Ogan (Burning in Fire)