Artist: Negură Bunget
Country: Romania
Label: Code666
Formats: CD
Year: 2002
Much has been said and told about this band from Romania, but not really much is known about them. Also, all the releases, before this one, are barely obtainable. The band is shrouded in a haze of fog and mystery, cult at its best! This CD will be the first encounter with this band for most people, and it will be a tall order. The CD is a gem among black metal, no doubt, but it’s a hefty piece of work. It’s not an easy listen, and there are lots of weird drum ticks, crazy quiet parts and strange folky sections. But after several listens, the professional nature of this CD emerges more and more, it will appear as a near-perfect album. I think hardly anything could have been better on this album. This is undoubtedly one of the few black metal bands that can be original and creative in this genre that is dogged by clichés and unwritten genre rules.
The compositions are truly verging on the brilliant and amaze me every listen. The album has four tracks simply numbered from I to IV, but still clocks in at over 50 minutes, which is also an art in itself: keeping such long songs interesting and engaging. The songs are full of raw double guitar runs and riffs, great bass lines and excellent drumming which all point to high technical talent. Fans of raw but substantive and technical black metal as well as pagan black metal should definitely not miss this album. This disc will definitely occupy a prominent place in my collection.
The album also contains a nice extra in the form of a multimedia section. Here you can see the full discography, biography, photos and many more things. It also features a cool music video for the song Välzduh, which was originally on a Code666 collector. Very professionally done and definitely worth watching, I actually think it’s the one of the best black metal videos ever made. All in all, this will turn into a black metal album for the ages.
