End

Name: End

Génre: Black Metal

Country of origin: Greece

End III

Imagine the furious excitement, anticipation and satisfaction that Hitler was feeling as he pressed the ‘on‘ button of the first Jew hoover and began to see his plans, however nefarious, take shape. I felt the same about this album upon learning of it early this year!

The fact that I hadn’t toiled to create the album or put my own thoughts or talent into it probably means that my feelings were slightly less intense than either Hitler of End.

Anyway I couldn’t wait to hear it and within minutes of the CD hitting the floor below my letterbox it was inserted excitedly into the player. Thankfully, unlike the drug addicted and power crazed Fuhrer we haven’t had to wait 21 years for the next installment of End’s evil.So with all the instant chaos and noise of the dual cyclone Jew buster, End plunge recklessly into Catastrophe like an invasion of Poland; without warning and with devastating speed.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it sounds tons heavier and much cleaner than 2003′s II and much more aggressive. Quite what they’ve been doing for 6 years is now brutally obvious: refining and improving their technique, delivery and sound. The vocals tear shreds into the air around you mixing up painful sounding screaming with deeper more guttural bellowing. The song rides a wave of intense negativity that builds savagely towards the end.

‘Self Eating Mass’ drops the tempo a couple of notches.It’s good to see song titles that are imaginitive and thought provoking these days, in the face of an overdose of Satan hailing. The momentum from track 1 is upheld despite the brakes being applied. Until about half way through when it get a bit soft, slow and floppy with picked guitars (still distorted) and grumpy bickering singing. This goes on for the rest of the song for some reason and seems a bit pointless other than to add atmosphere that it dosen’t really need.

However, ‘Still In Flesh’ makes you forget that with a massivley melancholy riff reminiscent of some of Watain’s finer moments. It is dark and depressing and would fit well into an independant movie. It picks up later on with a sudden shift back to aggression, made most welcome by the first part of the tune and finishes in a catchy flurry.

I’m all for experimentation and think that bands need room to explore different shit but ‘In The Womb of Sick’ took me totally by surprise. The opening section doesn’t sound much like Black Metal even though there are some good riffs in it. It gets better but feels like a song they just threw together. Next up is ‘Lavish Gloom’ which is a stompy affair to begin with but also feels a bit like an outstretched arm to mainstream acceptance with the last 2 minutes comprising of relatively nicey nicey stuff.

‘Ugly and Bygone’ pulls it back together and is a good solid song. ‘The Largest Hearse’ revs the CD back to normal with some good ol’ dirty foot tapping grimness and paves the way for the finale entitled ‘Megalomania’ which is just as exciting and satisfying as the opening track. This really saves the album in my opinion because it could have gone horribly wrong and been sucked into the same internment area as Satyricon and Keep of Kalessin. I only hope that End don’t fall into that on their next album.

Like Hitler, End have had some good ideas and some not so good ones and hopefully neither will result in a world war or genocide although you can never be 100% sure of that. III is a good album. Well written and produced and I’m sure it will push End up the list of accomplished bands of the latest wave of Black Metal and is well worth checking out.

Written by: Waffen

Tracklist: 

1. Catastrophe
2. Self-Eating Mass
3. Still in Flesh
4. In the Womb of Sick
5. Lavish Gloom
6. Ugly and Bygone
7. The Largest Hearse
8. Megalomania

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