Strah 

Ondskapens Sanne Ansikt

Self Financed 2010

Ondskapens Sanne Ansikt is an album of traditional Norwegian black metal, a straightforward affair of no-frills nihilism and black desolation.  Fuzzed guitars, blast beats and ghoulish shrieks combine in a malevolent windstorm of on Ildregn Over Jorden.  The intensity of the track is relentless from beginning to end.  Whereas Jeg Skal Odelegge opens with a rockier passage that brings to mind a triumphant cavalry charge, and then a thrashing black metal riff is unfurled against a backdrop of pitchblack metal which reminds me at times of Urgehal.  A Gorgoroth feeling permeates the song Kampen Mot Lyset.  However this is quickly dispelled on En Sot Smak Av Blodig Hevn with is crushing guitar noise and dizzying riffs that circulate like snowflakes in a typhoon.  And the relentlessly quick tempo never allows a moment's respite from the melee.  Posorers Moral once again incorporates thrashing morbidity and rabid black metal velocity (think really early Kreator and Bathory).  A Nordic melody forms the main force of movement on Skogsvandering I Skyggen av Lyset.  The music speaks of nighttime wanderings through darkened forests.  Thin guitars and an awkward melody and strange transitions hamper the flow of the album on For Faen.  This is rectified on the album's closer, Verden Er Min Fiende.  Confident upward arcs on the six-string slice like a longsword while a grinding rhythm scars the tundra, a fiery solo towards the song's climax burns like a torch.  The debut album from Strah is the musical equivalent of a suffocating northern blast of cold arctic air racing across a battle torn landscape, the ground is frozen with lifeless carnage strewn all around.