Vandreren

Well I already reviewed Peaceville re-releasing Mayhem's Dawn of the Black Hearts with a generic black and white cover without any brains to be found anywhere either on the cover or at Peaceville. And I already reviewed the assemblage of leftover Fenriz recordings that Fenriz himself deemed unworthy of release back in the 90s that Peaceville decided should be a "new" Isengard album. However, the latest Peaceville attempt at taking your money with nothing of value provided trumps even these.

Here's Vandreren, a term you might have heard before from reading the liner notes of the Vinterskugge compilation that you already have. This is the first half of said compilation. And now, according to Peaceville's wishes, you are going to buy the first half of the compilation you already have, again, because now it's marketed as a previously unreleased demo. The fuck? If you're dumb enough to fall for that, how are you even reading this review because you have obviously suffered severe brain damage at some point. But assuming you are reading this review and have not suffered severe brain damage, you must be as puzzled by this release as I am. What the actual fuck is the market for this? Everybody who is into Isengard already has Vinterskugge and those who aren't into Isengard yet should get Vinterskugge, the whole compilation, and not just the first half of it. I mean, I seriously thought that releasing Dawn of the Black Hearts without the brain cover that everybody bought it for, because considering it's the worst sounding Mayhem bootleg of all time, was the dumbest idea Peaceville ever could have come up with, but then they came up with this one. If anybody can provide me with sales numbers, my email is in my profile, and prove to me that a single person bought this completely worthless piece of garbage, I can promise you that I will lose what little faith in humanity I ever had. And concerning what I previously said about that Mayhem record I thought couldn't be topped, this now has me worried that there may be no limit to how low Peaceville can go. I don't even want to think of what kind of useless garbage they come up next and ask money for it.

So yeah, obviously the music on this record is impeccable. It's the first half of a classic after all. Folk black metal leaning heavily towards both. If you haven't heard Isengard that may be a weird statement, but once you do, you know what I mean, it's folk black metal that is very folk metal and very black metal, a hundred percent of both, that's what makes it such a classic. All the folk melody you can croon your ass off to and all the primordial darkness of classic black metal with the raw sound and the icy Nordic dark atmosphere that goes along with it. Absolute classic. That's why every black metal and folk black metal fan worth their salt has the Vinterskugge compilation, and if you don't have it yet, get it. And skip weird as fuck grifter labels trying to sell you half of it because honestly, those weird as fuck grifter labels - regardless of past accomplishments three decades ago - at this point can go fuck themselves.