1. Intro
2. Stella Polaris
3. Kansojen Hävittäjä
4. Wolf Night
5. Sonderkommando Nord
6. Warrior
7. Conqueror
8. Overlord
Genre - Black Metal
The
Finnish black metal scene continues to solidify its position as the
strongest and most productive of the Scandinavian countries in the
last 15+ years or so, with acts such as Sargeist, Horna, Clandestine
Blaze and Satanic Warmaster among many others, it's a hard argument
to counter that there's any other country in the world continually
producing as much quality black metal as Finland. Where-as with the
likes of Norway where the scene stagnated long ago, mainly due to the
fact many of the acts still claw at the coattails of residual past
glories, the Finns appear to have a consistent knack for drawing
fresh inspiration while still maintaining the core ideology of what
black metal actually stood for.
Goatmoon
are one of these bands, now onto their fifth album of remorseless
black metal barbarity, with Stella Polaris, and
as with Voitto Tai
Valhalla, Blackgoat
Gravedesecrator (what a name!) continues with the band's progression
from the primitive dishevelled black metal garage punk noise of the
debut to a more structurally refined and melodic, yet still jagged
and recognizable style of pagan themed black metal. If you pour a
glance over the fantastic cover art, it actually does give you a good
impression of the sound present on Stella
Polaris.
The main backbone of the music is still a heavily significant
juxtaposition of the sadism of Satanic Warmaster and obnoxious punk
styled riff work of Absurd.
One
of the first things that stood out for me on this album was how much
it reminded me Swedish band Vinterland. I don't think this was
intended, it lacks the depressive attitude of Welcome
to My Last Chapter,
but at times the absolutely frigid, crystalline gleam of the
atmosphere on Stella
Polaris coupled
with Blackgoat's harsh, bitter rasp, drew my attention to it more
than once.
When
the album is good, let me tell you it is fucking brilliant, the title
track packs a punch with it's fast, icy sharp tremolo riffing, synths
and upbeat tempo all tied up with some pretty flashy heavy metal
styled guitar leads. 'Kansojen Hävittäjä', a track from the split
with Der Sturmer early last year makes a return, and without doubt is
one of the greatest tracks Goatmoon have ever wrote. The contrast
between the sharp lively riffing and main 'chorus' riff is
absolutely fantastic, and when it comes in again at 2:30 in the
higher key wrapped in those synths, it is utterly astounding. The
last three tracks are all very tight too, following the same paths
between the caustic relentless black metal and the glacial folky
atmospheres, even bringing to mind the likes of Emperor such as heard
on “Overlord”, which takes a slightly more astral slant. What I
like about Blackgoat's use of synth is that he obviously knows how to
use it with restraint; synths used sparsely but at the the right time
can be so much more effective than drowning the album in them like
some overambitious Tolkien freak.
My
problem with Stella
Polaris
has nothing to do with the actual music itself, and that's the really
frustrating thing present here; the musicianship on showcase here
absolutely stellar, it's Goatmoon doing what they do best, and the
next logical step on from their last album. It's just once the last
track finishes, I was kind of left sitting thinking to myself “Is
that it?”. Because if you take out the intro, the unnecessary “Wolf
Night” and “Sonderkommando Nord” (which is a nice almost
Celtic-esque instrumental, but would have been so much more
interesting with vocals) then you only have five proper tracks, one
of which appeared on a split EP last year. And with the album as a
whole only clocking in at 31 minutes, you almost feel a bit short
changed, of which is only exacerbated by the fact that musicianship
on those five songs is just so fucking excellent, it just goes by in
a flash. And for that reason I just can't give this album the
nigh-perfect mark I wish I could.
Still
though, dis-regarding the previous aspect about the length, Stella
Polaris
should still most certainly be sought out by all self-respecting fans
of the band and those into riff-centric, pagan-themed, atavistic
black metal. Goatmoon deliver their doctrine with an iron hand, no
compromise, and displaying everything that black metal should be, an
ugly and raw middle finger to tolerance, pretentious 'progressive
avant-garde' nonsense and just shite fucking black metal in general.
It's short and straight to the point, just a pity it's all so brief.
7.8/10
Originally written for http://www.metal-observer.com
If you like - Baptism, Sargeist, Satanic Warmaster
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