Bureval

For a while it seemed like black/crust would become the next big thing in black metal. However just as it got real momentum going on most of the bigger bands either split up or toned down the amount of releases. Iskra are one of these acts. Although it does seem that their first full length got more attention than this second full length of theirs they released 5 years ago as of this writing.

Iskra on this record play basically raging black metal with crust punk overtones. The black metal part is mostly of Norwegian origin. There are a lot of riffs and they are fairly melodic. The riffs attempt to rip your face off and they succeeded quite well at this. Not only that but quite a few of them are memorable. The crust punk element is harder to pin down exactly. The bass guitar is fairly crusty. The riffs got a slight crusty feel to them too but definitely the crust punk part is not the dominant aspect. It is not like these riffs are just tremolo picked DooM or Tragedy riffs.

There is only one thing on this record that is of noticeably lesser quality. The vocals just are not very good. There is not a lot of power behind them. They kind of sound like a crust punk vocalist trying to sound black metal. While jumping from the crust punk ship on the shore however he tripped and fell in the water instead of mixing both styles in a proper fashion. While the riffs go at it with the right amount of viciousness and diversity the vocals eventually get a bit grating. It does not help that the vocalist got quite a few lines of text to spit out as well. It is not a coincidence that one of my favorite parts on this album namely the opening of Okeanos is instrumental.

Because of the mediocre vocals I can only recommend this record to people who can listen past the vocals like I personally can and even then the vocals detract from the experience for me. If you can't I recommend checking out Infernal Stronghold as those guys do everything about this style just right including the vocals. The riffs on this record do wreck and destroy. Everything else on this record is so much above average that this would be a bonafide modern classic with different vocals. Hopefully better luck next time as these guys are still active.