Dit Tranendal verlaten

This EP seems to be an effort to use the folkish melodies of bands like Equilibrium Finntroll and abstract them into buzzy black metal. Actually, the central themes reminded me a lot of an old band called Raventhrone (who DO know a thing or two about melody). Unfortunately, the mind(s) behind Borgazur could use some help with their compositional skills, as the backing melodies get old pretty fast. Every once in a while there's a nice epic riff, but that could be accidental.

The intro starts out with sing-songy forlorn vocals in Dutch, and expertly turns up the speed, then makes a lightspeed jump into spit-growling black metal, blastbeating drum-machine and keyboards in full effect. Then the sing-songy vocals reappear as a backdrop for a moment, and it all slows down. The heart of the sound is made up by a humming guitar and synthesizer, alternating between no more than three or four notes of wavering warm buzz. The production, rather than being crackly with static, is simply dim and slightly weak...the tones bend when sustained and the whole affair is slightly wonky. The drums are echo-y and it sounds like the drummer has loose hands. The drumming is decent but nothing like the masters of blast, and it repeats too many tired rock n roll fills. The vocals show some real potential in their all-out vitriolic moments, but the singer sounds bored much of the time. He sounds like high-speed blastbeat stuff like 1349 might suit him better.

This is an interesting first effort, but Borgazur needs to study their Burzum textbook a little harder.