Friday, July 23, 2021

Snow Wolf Records “This Wretched Earth” (Global Black Metal Compilation Album)




    The world shall soon face the sinister wrath of a colossal black metal storm conjured up by Snow Wolf Records. “This Wretched Earth,” is a compilation album that brings together 16 bands from 14 countries, thus creating one great black metal heathen army to unleash chaos upon the global metal community. 


    I really like what Snow Wolf Records has done as of recent, and the bands they have included on this compilation are extremely talented up and coming acts. Some of the tracks provided by the bands are exclusive tracks and are not available anywhere else. From top to bottom, the album features some raw ritualistic sounding black metal, yet features bands that are able to step outside the generic extreme metal trends and offer up unique sounding recordings. 


    Even though we come from different countries, the passion for extreme music is a truly unifying force and one that has allowed people to share some unbelievably creative recordings. The album’s first track, “Black Metal Invasion,” by the Canadian band Spectral Dance, was the perfect choice to start off the compilation. The song has that primitive old school raw black metal vibe and reminded me of early Bathory. You hear a band ready to take on the world without any remorse and they have an amazing amount of venomous energy. 


    Throughout the album you will hear a variety of approaches ranging from straightforward raw black metal to haunting atmospheric black. Take for example, “Akvan,” a band that really caught my attention by constructing a track that contained a profound atmosphere and featured some mesmerizing guitar work. When it comes to production I felt that for the most part the bands on this compilation did a tremendous job recording and getting the music to have that certain quality needed to keep listeners engaged. Some of the bands are of course a bit more skilled than others, but the passion is definitely there from a majority of the bands. Gestorven from Malaysia was one act which I felt hammered out a killer sounding riff and capture the pure dark essence of black metal. 


    Some of the names on this compilation sounded familiar and sure enough one of the bands I reviewed before for this blog. Starer, a band that I reviewed back in January of this year, is an extremely impressive band worth checking out. The band’s solemn atmospheric black metal style is truly breath taking at times and features some brilliant dynamic arrangements. Another band that I felt composed a really impressive sounding track was Odyrmos from Greece. The song mixed together ambient dungeon synth with soothing atmospheric touches that reminded me a lot of Lustre. 


    So many of the bands featured on this compilation offered up some epic, blistering and blasphemous sounding tracks, and in the end all of them are worth checking out. Huge respect for Snow Wolf Records for putting this compilation together, and for bring together the global extreme metal community. We may come from different places, but all across the planet there are fiendish extreme metal fans and artists who share the same passion for this music and no matter what is going on in the world, we are united as one global extreme metal community! 



Snow Wolf Records Bandcamp (Compilation comes out August 6th on Cassette, CD, and Digital Download. Pre-Order now available!) : 

https://snowwolfrecords.bandcamp.com/album/this-wretched-earth

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