A Journey Through the Darkest of Forests

Not that bad of a full length like the previous reviewer makes it out to be. Its not amazing quality and its definitely something primitive. Lots of moaning going on, hand drums, weird sounds that cut through, buzzy guitars, strange vocals, odd lyrics, hardly any developed technique or professionalism, this type of primitive makes things very interesting. Right away, listening to this you can get a feel of a mixture of Absurd from Germany and Graveland from Poland and even at times Perunwit from Poland. Whats most important is what seperates this from others, the absolute techno parts like track 14, a type of dark techno blended with folk ritualism with chanting, truely amazing, alot like old Perunwit almost. Dead Reptile Shrine's black metal is alot like Absurd and Graveland riffing and atmosphere and drumming. If more time were to go into writing the songs you could expect a really great future release from these guys but for now, with this, its a so so job, but feeling like more can be done to enhance the feelings in the music.

One has to wonder about the need of some labels to release such crap. Because yes, all these songs are nothing more but crap with all the mistakes and bad sound that such bands always carry with them during their (hopefully) short career.

Said to be an "aural phenomenon" by its members, Dead Reptile Shrine is in fact your typical underground and primitive black metal band. There's absolutly nothing original or new here, on the contrary. Most elements come from your typical true evil bands such as Les Legions Noires but without the genius spark.

So what are we offered here? Some audio abuse ranging from the mediocre to the worst, production is something the band doesn’t know, even if the songs come from different recording sessions, the guitars are always limited to a low buzz with something sounding like a drum lost somewhere between the riffs. And of course, no bass can be found here.

The most ignominious thing in this band has to be vocals, I don’t know what this guy tries to accomplish but he is ridiculous. Honnestly, I can never go through track 2 (a cave full of corpse lanterns) without laughing until my stomach hurts!!! The incantations and clear vocals sound horrible!!! If the band was trying to make it sound like somekind of ritual, they sure managed to record a ritual of the grotesque.

I guess I'm just not part of those "blessed ones"(as the label states in the band's bio) who are able to understand the existence of such mediocre and uninteresting band. I give it a "1" though because this album will only make 500 victims. The band members themselves have so much faith in their band that they prefer to remain anonymous...