VELMORTH

VELMORTH     "Feral Dominion"

By Dr. Abner Mality

I wonder how long it will be before black metal's obsession with reliving the past starts to work against it. How many "returns to the glorious 90's" can we have before it starts to lose its luster? Not many more, I'm thinking, although a small cult-like following will always be up for that.

VELMORTH is another such "band" and actually they are better than most. As might be expected, it's one guy named Revenant, involved in ORDER OF NOSFERAT and other projects...one man bands are still "trve to the bone". On "Feral Dominion", he does indeed come up with a powerful recreation of 1996-era fast n' freezing black metal of Norse vintage. After an eerie organ intro, the title track cuts in with an absolutely spot-on recreation of ghoulish, treble-obsessed BM meant to be played in a snowy forest by torchlight. Thankfully, it's fairly well produced and the bass and drum are both of adequate power.

The album follows suit in exactly the same fashion and the songs begin to blur into an icy mass of slush. Once in a while, a tinny keyboard pops up. Last track "Approaching Wrathstorm" has actual choir like voices and melody, which makes it a little different. Honestly tracks like "Hail Eternal Warspirit" kick ass by themselves but VELMORTH takes that vein of nostalgia and works it dry. The fact that there are seemingly dozens of other acts trying to recapture this sound also doesn't do this favors in the long run.

It's actually a pretty decent album if you want to totally relive that period in black metal history, but the shelf life of this kind of stuff is of short duration.

PURITY THROUGH FIRE RECORDS 

VELMORTH