The Black Arts / The Everlasting Sins
| The Black Arts / The Everlasting Sins | |
|---|---|
| Music album by Necromantia and Varathron | |
|
Publication |
1992 |
|
admission |
January 1991, December 1991, February 1992 |
| Label (s) | Black Power Records |
|
Format (s) |
LP |
|
Title (number) |
8th |
|
running time |
37:27 |
|
Studio (s) |
Sin Ena, Red House |
The Black Arts / The Everlasting Sins is a split - LP Greek black metal -Bands Necromantia and Varathron . It was released on Black Power Records in 1992 and was re-released by Unisound Records in 1994 under the title Black Arts Lead to Everlasting Sins with some bonus songs and a different record cover .
Emergence
The songs of Necromantia were recorded and mixed at Sin Ena in December 1991; The Worshipper of Pan, who also recorded the saxophone and percussion , also worked as a sound engineer for Evil Prayers . Varathron's songs were mostly recorded and mixed in January 1991 at the Red House, The Cult of the Dragon in February 1992 at Sin Ena. In the spring of 1992 it was released by Black Power Records. In the same year the operator, Costas, moved to Scotland.
Due to the success of the split LP, the bands got requests for more copies. In 1994, Morbid von Necromantia asked Necroabyssious from Varathron if he was interested in re-releasing it on CD through Unisound Records. Upon approval, Unisound transferred the rights to the republication to Panos; it was released on CD, an LP version was released via Hellion Records from Brazil. Since it was a re-release with bonus material, the band Varathron contributed the songs of their sold out first EP One Step Beyond Dreams and Necromantia the song De magia veterum .
Track list
- Necromantia - Lord of the Abyss - 07:50
- Necromantia - The Feast of Ghouls - 05:33
- Necromantia - Evil Prayers - 05:43
- Necromantia - Lycanthropia - 1:43
- Varathron - The Cult of the Dragon - 02:26
- Varathron - The Tressing of Nyarlathotep - 07:14
- Varathron - La Pure Noir - 06:09
- Varathron - Outro - 00:49
style
The music of the bands can be assigned to the Greek Black Metal style, although Necromantia and Varathron "could hardly be more different in their musical direction". The texts are determined by occultism and satanism .
Characteristic for the darker style of Necromantia compared to Varathron is the absence of a rhythm guitar; only a few guitar solos were recorded by guest musician Dave, otherwise the guitar was replaced by an eight-string bass. In its "sedate manner", the music is often reminiscent of the slower pieces by Beherit . The mostly slow music is interrupted again and again by guitar solos and guttural singing as well as numerous pauses and breaks , which creates “a very eerie, horror-like feeling”. The voice moves between growling , whispering and spoken passages.
In Evil Prayers , an adaptation of Remy de Gourmonts poem Oraisons mauvaises , is a slow, experimental piece that begins with a piano application before an easier while retaining the over the entire song bass line begins, accompanied by tribal rhythms. After about one and a half minutes, a solo on the saxophone is played. After about 3 minutes and 20 seconds, the repeated runs of bass and percussion are slightly changed, but basically more or less retained. A more pronounced stylistic change occurs after about 4 minutes and 20 seconds, when the bass playing accelerates and the percussion is supported by permanent cymbal inserts.
Varathron's side begins with the keyboard intro The Cult of the Dragon and the whispering voice of Necroabyssious. The clearly more metal- heavy style of the band is dominated by the use of two melodic guitars. The riffs are inspired by traditional Heavy Metal and Doom Metal and are accompanied by drums in a rhythm that is typical for Doom Metal.
Reviews
In the first edition of the Tales of the Macabre , The Black Arts / The Everlasting Sins was described as a cult publication. Hellenic Metal's Skariotis describes the split LP as "one of the most iconic recordings ever released by the Hellenic scene" and as early evidence of the uniqueness of the bands. Herjulf from Vönger Musikmagazin wrote about the re-release of Black Arts Lead to Everlasting Sins that the bands with their different musical orientations complemented each other perfectly; this makes the split LP "an incredibly versatile matter" and contains "basically everything that should make Black Metal special". Since "the implementation is almost flawless over long stretches," he tended to describe it "as one of the best split albums that have ever appeared in Black Metal". Rüdiger Stehle from Powermetal.de called them legendary.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arto Lehtinen: Varathron - Stefan NecroAbyssious ( Memento of the original from October 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ a b c d e f Herjulf: Necromantia / Varathron # Black Arts Lead To Everlasting Sins .
- ^ Rotting Christ . In: Tales of the Macabre , No. 1, p. 6.
- ^ "This split LP is one of the most cult recordings ever released from the Hellenic scene. It hit the lights in the year 1992, through Greek label Black Power Records. The side of Necromantia is called The Black Arts, the side of Varathron is titled The Everlasting Sins. The LP is an early evidence, how unique these two bands were and still are! ”Skariotis: Hellenic Metal ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Rüdiger Stehle: Varathron / Crowsreign .
