You know, black metal isn’t really my forte’. I can listen to it and I can appreciate the talent it takes to play it, but I just can’t get into it.

I’ve listened to Marduk and Satyricon and from what I can tell, Norweigen rockers 1349 rank right up there with the best. If the goal of black metal is to play as fast and as hard as possible, then these guys do not disappoint.

On tracks like “Satanic Propaganda” and “Evil Oath”, 1349 blast off into a musical land of unbelievably quick blast beats and machine gun strumming. While the band’s techniques and performance are impressive, it’s a bit much for me to listen to for any given length of time. Production on the disc is clean and tight, and reminds me a lot of Mayhem’s last disc.

Fans of black metal should check out 1349. Any band that features former members from Pantheon, Funeral, Satyricon, Gorgoroth, and Zyklon-B and was named after the year the black plague hit their own country can’t be all bad. These guys have paid their gun belt dues and it shows.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 10:49 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.