Sunday 15 January 2012

Kriegsmaschine - A Thousand Voices

KRIEGSMASCHINE - A Thousand Voices (Blutreinheit Productions - MCD 2004)
Kriegsmaschine belongs to the group of Polish black metal bands that I have a lot of respect for. If I was putting a list of the best BM hordes from Poland, then along with Thunderbolt, Mgla, Furia, MasseMord, Strandhogg, Mordhell, Blaze of Perdition and few more, definitely Kriegsmaschine name would be there also, probably even in the top three. Of course there's some sort of mystery around the band, but I wouldn't care much about that, it's the music that I appreciate more than anything else. "A Thousand Voices" is a MCD the band did in 2004 and I only just bought it few years ago, after I was thrilled by the band's debut album. What I got here is the first edition MCD, from Blutreinheit Productions. Cool layout of the booklet, so it all announced a good recording.
"A Thousand Voices" consists of four tracks. The first one, "Unto Wormfeast Flesh", is a real smasher. Great riffing and cool, harsh, screaming vocals, stylistically it may bring resemblances from various of bands, starting with the early Deathspell Omega or Armagedda, finishing even with good old Darkthrone, played in maniacal fast tempo at first, but later it's more of a mixture between fast and mid paced parts, what creates a cool feeling and cold, hateful atmosphere. Next two tracks that follow, are equally great, the title tracks and "Apostle of Plague" deliver great dose of annihilating riffing, with good song structures, etc. and so the music does bring the chills down the spine. I really like some of the Leatherface's vocal parts, like when he screams "I am Omega, I am the flame, I am the balm and I am the bane, Redemption, salvation, dispersion, An apostle of plague... Ascension!". Really cool. Actually "Apostle of Plague", where this text is from, is definitely the best track from the MCD, it is based basically only on the mid paced tempo, but that makes the song kind of catchy and more memorable, if you know what I mean.
Finally the final song, "B.T.S.", is the least interesting one from the whole MCD, it's much faster than the rest of them, but at the same time it's very chaotic and somehow maybe even too furious, anyway I think that the riffs here are rather mediocre and thus I just don't feel like this song was that convincing. But the rest of "A Thousand Voices" is definitely worthy to be recommended, mind though that it's not as good as the future Kriegsmaschine recordings.
Standout track: "Apostle of Plague"
Final rate: 70/100

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