Formed a decade ago, South-France’s Pestiferum did offer the audience a limited yet highly acceptable number of releases; amongst those two splits (one with mighty Fhoi Myore) and a first album in 2009, being Solstice d’Hiver. Then, un moment donné, Pestiferum signed to (also mighty) Hass Weg Productions in order to release the sophomore full length studio album, Déchus Du Fléau, coming in an edition of 1,000 copies, including a sixteen-page booklet.
The Polish horde Aryman was formed at the very beginning of this century, but initially it was a band without name, without an aim (besides playing Black Metal!), without any official and professional recording or release. I guess it was in 2006 when main members Nefarius and Non Serviam decided to baptise their sonic brainchild as Aryman.
I think the Greek scene has always been largely underestimated. Some ‘big’ names did reach the rest of the world (as from the Eighties), but there’s quite an impressive underground scene too with some excellent outfits, and unfortunately they do not (always) get the attention they (sometimes) deserve. With gratitude for Hass Weg Productions (and distributing partner-in-crime Lower Silesian Stronghold), at least one band sort of crawls out of the bottomless pits of oblivion.
I sort of ‘adore’ about everything that gets released via French Black Metal label Hass Weg Productions, simply because they do focus on true, uncompromising, qualitative releases instead of over-produced, trendy acts that try to impress with a fake image. If you click on the label’s name, you will be able to find some other reviews I did for this label (I wrote them with pleasure and devotion, let’s be sure about that!).
On March 28th 2016 I did publish a review for Malmort’s Vox In Excelso, this French band’s debut full length album for Hass Weg Productions. Via the very same label we can also experience the sophomore full length, Excerpta Funebris. Once again, the songs were recorded at the La Grôlle Studio (except for the drums). The lyrics (mainly written by vocalist Reicheran) are in French, with some Latin excerpts injected.
Flamen are a young outlet by Italian instrumentalist Bartlett Green, whom you might know from his co-operation with Warnungstraum especially. Bartlett wrote some material which he would record professionally, and since he was looking for a ‘singer’ that would vocally fit to his ideas, he contacted Aryan Art’s Alexander Ivanov.
The Italian band Mortifier, which shares (or better: shared) members with e.g. Buio Omega, was formed during the first half of the nineties. In that period, they did record some demonstrational material, as well as the full length Darkness My Eternal Bride - which was, by the way, one of the first releases on the Battlegod Productions roster (hello Buio Omega once again…).
It was at the end of last decade that Balkor (the Toulouse-born guy involved with e.g. Pestiferum, Mourning Forest [(1)] or Caterva Runa) decided to start a new project in order to focus even deeper on the whole Old School current we all adore. So he started writing new material under the Halsfang-moniker, and step by step the realisation of an album transformed into a final stadium.
Blåkulla are an outfit by a French guy who calls himself Surtr Blackmoon Emperor aka S.B.E. (sometimes also active as Sveigdir Bölverks Einherjar). He released two recordings before, Darkened By An Occult Wisdom in 2011 and the EP Hymns To The Past Glory in 2013. Now he returns with his second full length, which gets released in an edition of 1,000 copies via Lower Silesian Stronghold, the label of Dark Fury’s band leader K.
For quite some time Malmort, hailing from the Rhône-Alpes region in the East of France, are terrorizing the scene, but Vox In Excelso actually is the band’s first full length release despite about a decade of existence. Hass Weg Productions did send me over this 2012-release, as well as 2014’s Excerpta Funebris, so I will review both of them, of course.
