Cold Moon over Kaltenberg

The Gernoth side of the tape features 7 tracks of tastefully old-school Black Metal. This is a one-man band, so expect music from a smaller pool of influences, that takes on the distinct character of its creator.

Gernoth use a fairly straight-forward approach of guitar-driven musicianship, electronic, yet pleasantly varied drums and some subdued keyboards. I am not sure what to make of this - the keys are fairly common in their electric organ, horror flick sound, but mixed down as they are, add a certain eerie undertone to the music. Do not get me wrong, this type of Rock 'n Roll BM is great and Gernoth do it well, but the fact remains - it has been done before, and there is not much variety in his music.

One thought that comes to mind is that this would have been great to see live. Perhaps it is the way the music is recorded - raw, sloppy, but clear and very competent, almost live. There is a certain atmosphere of malevolence and foreboding, not exemplified by one particular song, but thrown over the whole recording.

The last 3 songs are covers of Bathory's "Return of Darkness and Evil", "Sacrifice" and Carpathian Forest's self-titled. These are given a more light-hearted heavy metal reinterpretation, that differs both from the originals and from the rest of Gernoth's music here. I guess this would be a pointer: fans of Bathory and Carpathian… etc. This is a good recording, if a little dated.

Side B holds 3 songs by Canberra's Myrddraal. There is a 100% improvement from their demo - raw, passionate Black Metal and finally a decent production. Full attention is given to the power of their music, the noise- saturated tone of their guitars, the thick fuzz-driven bass and neurotic, strangled vocal thrown over machined drumming. The booklet informs that Myrddraal do have a drummer, but he was not able to participate in the autumn sessions. They make the best of the bad situation by reverting to an already tried approach, but processing the programmed drums to attain the fullest possible sound.

The compositions display a greater maturity and a slightly more minimalist technique. The music is very repetitive, but the sessions are so raw, that it doesn't matter, somehow Myrddraal's extremity equates to a very unique atmosphere. The first track is a fast, vicious number, following is a longer, more withdrawn song and finally an even longer composition closer to the type of music on the first demo. Things get very chaotic here as the band saturates the tape with noise samples and twisted chanting speech, guitar solos , all the while a blizzard of distortion and drums races underneath. I don't think there are any synths here, except for maybe the first song, somewhere deep in the mix. That is a good move, for I do not see the given music lacking in anything which means that synth would probably offset some of its impact. Great to see Myrddraal come back in force.

*review originally published in the now defunct thegatesofhell.org webzine in 2000.

In retrospect, I think both bands delivered excellent recordings, although I enjoyed Gernoth's covers over his original material. The Myrddraal number "The Soulless" is a great track that did not appear anywhere else and dropped from their live repertoire early on.