Svart Records

So Svart’s label heaves themselves upon the occult folk/psych bandwagon and it is a winner. When listening Iron Marsh one it perceives like they expand the barriers of their material , a cunning mixture of psych, folk, medieval, progressive rock and spiritual music whose final result is an unique sound with its unmistakable stamp, and that despite the acoustic guitar presence, the music is not sterile in this area, giving also prominent roles to good ol’ hammond, violin, flute, horns as well as a good range of percussion.

After leaving Reverend Bizarre, Peter Vicar created a fourth incarnation (Orne and Lord Vicar are the other ones)with E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr combining a much more electronic sound relying less on the sound of electric guitars.

Hailing from Slovenia, Chains must be one of the most obscure bands out there. The project was formed in 2010 and released a first album, called Of Death, in 2011. When Hour Of 13’s Lord Samhain joined Chains, the style changed a lot, yet without losing the elements of the origins.

Jess And The Ancient Ones are a rather unusual formation, seen from a musical point of view, even though they do fit perfectly to Svart’s roster. On May 23rd 2012 the band debuted with a nameless (self-called) full length (review: see Archives Section, update 09/12/12). Apparently there was a split-EP with Deadmask through Doomentia, but I haven’t heard this material, so I can’t say anything about it.

Svart Records holds especially Finnish acts on its roster, yet there are a couple of exceptions. This goes, for example, for High Priest Of Saturn. This band hails from Trondheim, Norway, and consists of three permanent members: Merethe Heggset, Martin Sivertsen and Andreas Hagen.

Svart Records do surprise me time after time. This time it goes for Sammal’s self-called album, a nine-tracker with a sixties-attitude.

These guys from Finland are sick after having drunk too much contaminated milk. They stopped menstruating, apparently, and are trying to get to the most kidney stones. Who will finally produce breast milk and urinate chocolate milk?

Philosophical life questions, spiritual contemplations about man’s human nature and their raison d’être. I want another glass of warm, white stuff… Do I?

Opium Warlords, the brainchild of Sami A. ‘Witchfinder’ Hynninen (whom you might know from e.g. Reverend Bizarre, Spiritus Mortis, Armanenschaft, Lohja SS, Punisment, KLV and several more), return with We Meditate Under The Pussy In The Sky, a five-tracker that lasts for thirty five minutes. We Meditate … is a mainly instrumental record, with an approach rather typifying to Svart Records.

After a break of eighteen years, Finnish band Convulse return with a bright future in mind. In antecedence to the upcoming full length later this year, this band (which was originally formed at the end of the eighties as S.D.S., but due to different circumstances, amongst which military service, mandatory all over Europe in the early nineties, Convulse was put on hold in 1995) recorded two new songs to tease our impatience. And believe me, with this two-tracker, called Inner Evil, Convulse make me inquisitive…

Hailing from Switzerland, shEver are a female Doom-formation that started almost a decade ago. After a demo, recorded shortly after the band’s birth, they gained lots of positive responses all over Europe. No, not because they are all women (maybe just a little as well; being female might help sometimes ;o), but because of their nice song writing and impressing live performances. 2007 saw the first shEver full length, Ocean Of Illusions, and in 2009 the band released the highly acclaimed A Dialogue With The Dimensions EP.