Genre: Black Noise/Industrial,Black Metal
Label: Narbentage Produktionen
Line Up: BlackStream
BlackStream and Coven Of Impurity, split demo tape produced by the German label Narbentage Produktione.
In this release, we find two bands with clearly different musical proposals. We are immediately overwhelmed by the madness of BlackStream, active since 2005: the band, at the beginning, proposed old-school Black Metal influenced by bands such as Perdition Hearse, Sarcofago, and Sadistik Exekution.
After a period of inactivity, the band oriented itself towards a more industrial sound.
Defining their current proposal as Black Metal is difficult, given the absence of guitars, the basis of Metal in general is missing.
However, the dark atmosphere typical of the genre remains expressed in 6 tracks of extreme musical putridity; an always fast drum machine and no melody!! The voice, full of reverb, overwhelms everything else, but it could be a stylistic choice. The songs proceed obsessively, the only variations are given by disturbing sounds that add further delirium to this chaos.... a journey... a nightmare.
With Coven Of Impurity, we can speak more clearly of Black Metal.
The band, formed in 2020, already has a demo "In the Jaws of the Abyss", various splits, and the full album "Gnosis from the Kingdom Below".
The sound is rather raw and the execution has small flaws, but it is all very natural and real.
We start with "Souls to the Devil" from the cadenced beginning, the alternation between slow and fast parts is enriched by a good compositional solution of clean narrative voices.
We proceed with "The Burning", a rather slow and short song, very reminiscent of some parts of the album "As the Wolves Gather" by "Forgotten Woods".
Finally, the band dares a bit with the cover "Black Funeral" of the legendary "Mercyful Fate", in which you can notice more uncertainties in the execution, however, the substance is there.
In general, the guitars are a bit sacrificed, the voice seems to have a volume too high compared to the other instruments.
Ultimately, the split is a decent product, both bands show to have good foundations and a certain attitude for the genre, and over time they will certainly be able to refine the technical part.
S.A.M.A.
