Ancient North (USA) - The Gates - Reviewed By blackmetalistkrieg ! Check it out here at this link: https://www.blackmetalistkrieg.net/?p=14605
There's nothing to do, when the Iron Bonehead Productions smells rotten just can't help but sign the band that produced the garbage in question. This is the case of the solo project Ancient North, originating from Oregon, which was born just this year and behind which lies the mastermind Forlorn, apparently raised on bread and Gorgoroth, with a side dish of Darkthrone and Immortal, and convinced that the black metal must remain exactly as it was in 1994, true, bad, black, cryptic at the limits of incomprehensible and naturally recorded with the rear. Especially recorded with the rear. And in fact this debut full length (but in 2022 an EP and another album have already been released) is fully included in my personal ranking of the ten worst recorded albums I've ever listened to.
We are really at the levels of the live cellar demos that circulated in the early nineties, between rustling, very low volumes (apart from the voice that dominates everything), drums practically to be imagined and a vacuum cleaner effect guaranteed. How much truth in all this. And actually a certain nostalgia pervades you while listening because it really seems to go back in time, when products like this were the order of the day and this way of playing represented a kind of dogma, especially in certain Scandinavian circles, but not only , where attitude and elitist attitude seemed to matter more than anything else.
However annoyance prevails almost immediately, and indeed the nervous because, even if without giving up the crudeness, even a slightly better sound would have done justice to songs that are not absolutely bad, even if we are at the level of substantial photocopies made with trade, desire to to revive the good old days and nothing more. Because let's say that the compositional imagination in composing the pieces and in packaging the various aspects of the album is not one of our friend's best qualities, and just look at the cover, just a little similar to that of " Pentagram " by the aforementioned Gorgoroth (a record that no one knows eh), to realize it.
So here's the classic obsessive and minimal riffing to the bone, here's the classic tempo changes, here's the classic demonic screaming, here's the classic Darkthrone cover (needless to say from “Transylvanian Hunger”, because if one is true then might as well pay homage to the truest record of all time), without particular flashes, in the context of a bignami that cannot be more compiling. Maybe there will even be someone who will have the courage to define it as "cult" but I believe that an album conceived in this way today can only oscillate in a discreet anonymity, between academy and pure revival, and that it can only be listened to out of curiosity, appreciating it to the fullest honesty of purpose. Purely indicative rating. - blackmetalistkrieg
Release Date: April 27, 2022
FFO: Gorgoroth, Immortal, Ragnarok
Location: Oregon USA
Short Bio: Relentless traditional black metal with themes of winter, medieval. Fast and cold, aggressive with speed.
Check them out on Bandcamp and support!
Follow the band at these links:
Reviews - Interviews - Promo - Radio Play
Contact zach@metaldevastationradio.com
