Those Once Mighty Fallen

This split is advertised as consisting of previously unreleased old material from Norway's Ildjarn and Ukraine's Hate Forest. Upon release, it was almost universally regarded as excellent material, and even today, the initial reaction holds up. However, there are some significant problems with it.

For starters, the material advertised as being by Ildjarn was not actually Ildjarn material. It was the work of his frequent collaborator Nidhogg. It's still great material; to be honest, I actually enjoy it a lot more than a lot of Ildjarn's music. In addition, Nidhogg claims that much of the material was re-recorded without his consent for the split, and apparently plans to re-record it. Nidhogg does not seem to have been bothered by the misattribution, but was bothered by the re-recording. None of this affects my enjoyment of the music itself, but it does serve as a particularly unfortunate example of record label meddling.

The other problem with the material is the mastering. "Loudness war" problems are almost to be expected in modern black metal, but this release is loud and digitally distorted even by modern black metal standards. The mastering is so bad that even non-audiophile listeners have complained about it, and the problem affects both sides of the split.

If you're willing to overlook those problems, though, this set contains a lot of highly enjoyable material. To me, this is the point where Hate Forest started being an interesting black metal band (I would also recommend their later albums Purity, Battlefields, and Sorrow), and the Nidhogg side makes me wish he had released more material (maybe he will, someday). If you're familiar with Hate Forest's later work, you have a fairly good indication of what you're getting here; in no way should this be thought of as a lesser work than those releases. Nidhogg's work can also be heard on the sole album of Sort Vokter and on several of his collaborations with Ildjarn (credited as "Ildjarn-Nidhogg"). This, again, is up to the quality of his other contributions.

So ultimately, I strongly recommend this split for fans of ambient/atmospheric black metal, but it comes with the caveats I have mentioned above. If those are unlikely to affect your enjoyment of this material, you will probably get a lot of rewarding listening out of this set.

I've been familiar with Hate Forest and the act that emerged from it, Drudkh, for some time. I've listened to fewer songs by Ildjarn, but they always seemed like a pleasant mix of noise and black metal to me. So when I realized that there was a split between the two ostensibly discontinued acts, I knew that I had to check it out.

I was not disappointed. Ildjarn's half of the album is a noisy return to early Norwegian black metal. The hard rock roots are easy to hear in these aggressive opening songs, but I was a bit disappointed by the lack of variety and memorability. I can honestly say that each song segued nicely into the next, but there was nothing that really stood out as excellent.

Hate Forest's half was the epitome of the rapid-fire ambient/atmospheric feel that it and Drudkh have made famous. Production was raw, but not as (intentionally?) noisy and crude as Ildjarn, and I rather enjoyed the growled vocals. It was a nice departure from the standard shrieks that one hears in black metal, and my main complaint (as a big fan of Drudkh and Hate Forest both) is that the drumming was just a little too loud, and a little too crisp. Subduing percussion and making it a tiny bit rawer would have gone far in this case, at least that's my opinion.

Overall, I was rather pleased with this album and will listen to it many more times in the future. I preferred Hate Forest a lot more, but that's just due to my tastes. Ildjarn is excellent in its own right.