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Gorgoroth > The Last Tormentor > Reviews
Gorgoroth - The Last Tormentor

Gorgoroth - Bergen 1996 - 82%

CrusheR_DestroyeR, April 28th, 2008

I have always been an avid Gorgoroth fan, especially enjoying their earlier material: Pentagram, Antichrist & my personal favorite Under the Sign of Hell, so naturally I wanted a live experience from their earlier days, thus I purchased Bergen 1996.

First I must say I was rather disappointed by the bands choice to include Revelation of Doom on the record, I would have must preferred Bergtrollets Hevn or Heavens Fall, but nonetheless the mighty Ritual is the second and last track, which is an epic tune.

The recording quality is in my opinion extraordinarily good by early black metal standards, remember it is recorded live. At times I find the vocals to be lost amongst the rather down tuned guitars, and the rather tinny cymbals, but apart from that the vocals are menacing, dark and raw. Especially the way Pest introduces each song with a guttural shriek.

The guitars, as the previous reviewed stated are down tuned, which I feel sort of detracts from the original sound of each track, but other than that the guitars are flawless, and are recorded brilliantly. Infernus is an amazing guitarist, he knows exactly what notes to play at what times, and thus the songs have a dark sound about them.

Grim the drum does a rather average job and occasionally you can hear him go out of time, but this is a minor incident as it a live record and is not meant to be perfect.

Overall this an interesting release, showcasing the early Gorgoroth sound live. Pity it is so short (only two tracks). My opinion is to go buy the first three gorgoroth and be treated to some of the greatest black metal ever.

82%

So... What? - 75%

The_Ghoul, September 20th, 2006

I am an avid Gorgoroth fan. I have all their releases (from A Sorcery Written in Blood to Ad Majorem Gloriam Sathanas) and I have to say this release is completely irrelevant.

What it contains is 2 songs performed live, with a meaty yet average production; sometimes the tonality is lost in the distortion of it all. The overall sound is engulfed in a fuzzy haze, where it becomes hard to pick out the tonal aspects of the music. The first song is from the upcoming (at the time) release, Under the Sign of Hell. It's probably one of the weaker songs from the CD (I would've preferred Oggeledelse Og Undergang, but that's just me.) It's also performed a bit slower. I normally don't give points for speed, and the original wasn't that fast, but I seem to like the faster version better.

The other song is from A Sorcery Written in Blood and Pentagram, and it is Ritual. It differs not much from the original, and in this song, the vocals are pretty much buried under the haze of the guitars + bass (both of which are downtuned ridiculously compared to Gorgoroth's CD's).

Overall, there's not much to review here. There's nothing more about these songs that you wouldn't get from hearing the CD. Both are performed slower, which irked me. If you jizz at the opportunity of hearing yet another Gorgoroth tune like me, get this. But it's not important in any way.