Battletales and Songs of Steel

Evil Horde indeed did not skimp on the price for quite a lavish booklet and high quality band members pictures. Same goes for the band themselves, whose black metal regalia (make up, weapons, jewelry, spikes, belt buckles etc.) must have had a price tag as well. Too bad. Both the label but especially the band should have spent their time and resources on the actual recording instead of doing their hair in preparation for the album photo shoot. Contemporary Brazilian BM scene is mostly known for its quantity over quality approach, and this disc, released already a decade ago, falls right into the middle of that paradigm.

Confused is the key word here. I am not even sure why these guys insist on applying the BM moniker to their music when they appear to be overwhelmingly inclined towards pagan aesthetics, exemplified by both imagery (sans the band members' make up) and music. One would be hard pressed to point out more than several vaguely blackened riffs on the entire album, though a couple of faster tracks such as "Majestic South" or "Imperial Moon" do attempt to take half-hearted, rather misguided stabs at the form. What this album offers in essence is entirely contrived, faux-Viking sideshow, whose ingredients contain a self-defeating tandem of endless stream of used-up, fatigued, spineless chord runs and utterly compressed, pasteurized and over-boiled guitar sound. The fact that each and every track on the record is totally toothless, unthreatening and hopelessly boring is hardly surprising. With such achromatic, neutralized riffing and stymied production, it would be more logical to pass yourselves off for an average pagan band. All the necessary clichés are already in place: infusions of random sound effects (clanging swords, chirping birds, rustling leaves - the usual), a crop of uneven, wonnabe Viking chants, requisite and all too helpless keyboard passages, which either blend purposelessly amidst the riffs or unimaginatively ape the guitar lines. I suppose it would be unfair to say that GVF are not actually trying. In fact, they do appear to throw whatever it is they know into the fold. "Masters of the Old War" opens with fairly decent melodeath segment and ends with slightly old-school, overly primitive death metal-influenced riff, while "Cold Souls of the Forest" employs a similarly groove-based, deathly chug for much of its duration, until the band hastily attempt to superimpose their Viking sensibility over it towards the end, which, needless to say, only sows more confusion. This self proclaimed "barbarian black metal" is flopping on all fronts, I am afraid. By and large, there is no songwriting, no riffs, standard drum work... Eh, I'd rather talk about how cute the band's logo is or how nice the glossy booklet paper smells.

Or how about the lyrics? There are bits of Portuguese here and there, but the overwhelmingly English language word-craft is predictably formulaic and unintentionally amusing. The first blind read (of a lyric for "Imperial Moon"), for instance, revealed a plethora of tabulated terminology, from esoteric powers and the black arts to eternal eclipse and sacred axe of the fire. I tried "Majestic South" but was put off by the fact that Surgath, the vocalist/lyricist, proclaimed himself to be the master of infamous orgies and the loader of arrogance of the blood of his ancestors. Sigh. "Masters of the Old War" was my last attempt. Unfortunately, I never got passed the first line that read "full of hate and carelessness". Right, who would read the lyrics of a random black metal album anyway? It's just that there was nothing else left to do, my attention span was wandering off and the album was not over yet. There is a hidden track in there too. But let us not talk of it. Let us again smell the smooth, glossy booklet. I just hope that same great vast forest did not have to be cut down in order to manufacture that varnished paper.