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With
acts like Nokturnal Mortum, Lucifugum, Hate Forest, Castrum and Astrofaes, the
extreme metal underground in the Ukraine is growing stronger day by day. The
only of these who have made a bigger impression on me is Nokturnal Mortum and
Astrofaes actually hail from the same city as their big brother. Having formed
in the year 1996 this duo have recorded several cassettes for their home-based
label Oriana Productions but now their release from the year 2000, "The Eyes
Of The Beast", is re-released on cd by the French label Oaken Shield
(previously known as Chanteloup Creations). Made for the underground this is a
black metal album which is somewhat underproduced, atmospheric, harsh and
primitive. No female vocals, no keyboards, no clean male voices. Astrofaes
dedicate the album to "forests and marshes, steppes and rivers and also to
all secrets hidden from the eys of descendants by abyss of millenniums". What
they mean with this I leave to you and your own thoughts but I think I can
guess pretty well what goes on in your mind when reading these lines.
Personally I don't really care, I am here to review the music and nothing
else. I do like their dedication to Mother Nature though since she is the
mother of us all and must be treasured like any other living creature. Now I
digress as usual, back to the music then. No matter how much work you put into
being a true underground black metal band you still need to produce good music
and one part of making good music is related to two very important words known
as variety and diversity. This is where Astrofaes fail. At times their music
is nice to listen to but in the end you feel like there was really not much
happening and the vocals need to be improved as well. If you are a "true
black metal fan" I guess you don't care about what I say but these are my
opinions, no others. As you notice I don't care either. The cover art is
rather cheap looking even though I appreciate the concept. Stand-out tracks:
"Damnation Of Silence".
| Tracklist |
1. The Eyes Of The Beast 2. |
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And Winter Will Rise... 3. Secret Of Eternal Forests 4. The |
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Solstice 5. The Light Of Bloos And Pain 6. Days Of Darkness |
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7. Damnation Of Silence |
: 42.08
| Buy other Astrofaes albums |
