Úr Gar Noun in ir Cofn

In the Ainulindalë, it is described as powerful, mighty, and beautiful at first, but it becomes discordant, repetitive, evil, and disruptive. Melkor introduced dissonance and disharmony into the music, trying to assert his own will and themes over the collective melody created by the other Ainur. This discord in Melkor's music foreshadowed the dissension and wickedness that he would later bring into the world of Arda when he descended into it. In essence, Melkor's music symbolized his later rebellion against Eru Ilúvatar and his envy towards his peers' creations, as well as his desire to dominate and shape the world according to his own dark designs.

J. R. R. Tolkien's work has inspired artists around the world for almost a century; writers, painters, film-makers, and of course, musicians. Metal has always have love, admiration and praise for his letters, but black metal in particular has embraced Morgoth and the dark tongue as its own. Ash Nazg Burz is conscious that this is nothing new, that there are, literally, legends that have done this before, however, the epic-black metal most bands play to honor the Silmarillion or The Lord of the Rings serves as a microcosm that paints the tragedies, the battles, the mythological aspects, some specific stories and the whole work as inspiration. Here is where this band takes a step aside. This all-star Mexican behemoth of a band —lining up members of Raped God 666, Black Void Cult, Black Empire, Naastrand, and Inferna, to name a few— is not trying to replicate or imitate this approach, oh no!, they are playing vicious, explosive, fast, aggressive and evil black metal in its purest form, but with an exceptional recording, mastering and mixing. The sound of this record is outstanding for an offering of this genre, and this does justice to the absolute might of its music.

Úr Gar Noun in ir Cofn is as dark as it gets, blackness is all you get and it tears you apart from the first riff. Melkor and the Second Age are not just the themes of their lyrics, they are the core of the band's existence, this is written in English as much as in black speech and sindarin, which is spectacular, and this talks about how much the band cares for, and respects Tolkien's legendarium. The physical edition is also pure gold, the cover art, by Spiros Gelekas, is one of the best interpretations I have ever seen of Morgoth wearing the Iron Crown, it is so dark, distorted and enigmatic that is the perfect representation of the abyssal hymns on this entity. Concreto Records' edition includes a poster filled with horrific imagery of the glory days in Angband, the booklet is elegant, and the layout and details are very fitting for the album and its tone. Now, to its extreme music:

It starts powerful and beautiful at first, "Ainulindalë" is, perhaps, the best introduction to a Tolkien's related album, ever. It feels taken out of the trilogy by Peter Jackson, almost as if Galadriel (Hanna van den Berg/Obscura - Asagrum, Draugur) herself was narrating these events as well, furious and enraged over the fate of Arda; it contains music, orchestration as much as spoken word, and here the melodies and ideas seem to align with the epic-black metal fashion of old, is hard not to think about the great Summoning and expect a rendition of their style as a follow-up, but that is not the case. The real beginning of this madness of an album comes in the form of "Vortex Through the Second Age" with such a nasty, eerie, cold, and dark arpeggio that immediately you notice that this is not a journey to a fantasy land with its own conflicts and wars, beautiful landscapes and heroic deeds. No. This is pure fucking darkness. There is no other way to put it, when the main riff starts, and the song explodes, it is so dark the music seems to pore blackness out of the speakers, it is brutal, bleak, and unforgiving on every second of its duration, it creates a cursed atmosphere, wicked and dissonant, but mighty and gargantuan; all this, thanks to the guitar work, the herculean drumming and the lurking bass lines the band is capable of. The Mouth of Sauron honors his name, spitting and vomiting black speech as one does to curse Fëanor's kin during the Second Age. This song culminates its horrifying glory with a guitar solo I have been waiting ages to listen to in a black metal album: obscure, tyrannic, dominating over the chaos and violent riffs that came before, like Melkor stepping in front of his army, leading to fire and ruin, complex, aggressive, satisfying, earned and proper to the tune. Is the work of an experienced musician since, despite the chaos and bestiality, it has melody and structure, the best part of this anthem is its climax, the song ends with words spoken in the black tongue of Mordor, amazing to say the least. And this is just the beginning.

From here, Ash Nazg Burz keeps going deeper and deeper into the caverns of Ered Engrin, dragging you to an iron darkness, each song on this abomination of the Second Age is destructive, violent, cruel, and unmerciful yet, memorable, and shocking, and, then again, there is only severe blackness, the ever-present atmosphere of oppression and wickedness embody the true nature of Melkor as if he was present during the abyss storms each anthem offers. It is truly impressive the knowledge the band has to build and create obscure and evil atmospheres using nothing more than the traditional instruments of the genre, with no help from synths, piano, organ, or anything like that, there is no place for such a thing in the abhorrence of this record. Black metal of the highest order manifests in each individual song. Even when the speed of the album seems frantic, the composers also allow mid-tempo passages aided by nasty-catchy riffs, filled with malice, bad blood, and hate, as much of tenebrous-macabre arpeggios and musical figures.

An excellent example of everything mentioned before can be found in my absolute favorite anthem of this entity: "The Great Throne of Morgoth", this is a truly wicked song that delivers and pays respect to its title. It is colossal in sound, dark in essence, a carrier of evil and destruction, fast and unforgiving like an army of orcs thirsty for blood; the abyssal and oppressive presence of Morgoth Bauglir impregnates every single note, riff, and dissonance. There are several moments where you feel that the structure of the song by itself can't offer more than what you are listening to, but suddenly the band takes you by surprise with an infectious maleficent riff, and then, when you think it's all over, a horrific tremolo picking immolated in darkness imposes its tyranny towards the end. The bass line on this song is worth mentioning, it even has a moment to shine by itself. Six and a half minutes of pure black metal quality, this track is one of the silmarils in the iron crown of Ash Nazg Burz debut album. The chaos silences for an instant, just to explode again in the monstrosity form of "Dagor Dagorath" (The battle of battles), now, this theme in Tolkien's work is often portrayed (or tried to be portrayed) by many, many bands, not just in the black metal scene, but in several others, however, often its treated as just a topic, a tale, sometimes they try to describe it with the lyrics, but the music underperforms. Ash Nazg Burz is not interested in describing the battle or diving into the convoluted lore and intricate place in the legendarium, the band is here to bring darkness and destroy. Instead, the lyrics and the music are focused on the true sensations and obscure feelings of fighting in the last battle. It's crushing and overwhelming, yet there is a little nod to heroism or an epic ending.

This album is an actual album, a complete body of work that demands to be listened to in its entirety because each track is pure quality, you can feel and listen that the band took its time crafting each anthem, that they enjoyed composing them, playing them, and recording the whole thing. The record is alive and has its own will, one of obscurity and havoc. When you listen to the aberrant riffs and arpeggios in "Vacvvm Nectroterror" you can picture a Nazgûl riding to war with this music as its funereal companion. Ash Nazg Burz succeeded in several aspects with this full-length, for one, they developed a unique and particular style in their black metal, no other band sounds like them, and they created nine songs worth its place in such a work, so much that it is truly hard to pick the best one; any other band, debuting, could release one of this songs and have a great single, or a brilliant track to endorse its album, these maniacs did that nine times in a row, without a sweat, even the very last song has its own power and energy like there was no place for turning down on its declaration of war, the end is as furious, chaotic, dissonant and wicked as the start. But, the greatest success of this debut is that the band transcended Middle Earth, whose music can be found in the legendary melodies of Summoning, but here, in an iron darkness, they crafted what no other band —as far as I'm concerned— had done before, they manifested the true music of Melkor.

Highlights in (a very difficult) hierarchy order: "Vortex Through the Second Age", "The Great Throne of Morgoth", "Wanderer of the Rusted Land", "Dagor Dagorath", "Vacvvm Nectroterror", "Ainulindalë (Intro)".