Stillhet – Dømt At Have Sit Liv Forbrudt
New style Black metal isn’t really my thing. There are now loads of bands spewing forth this big production branch of the genre. As always there are some good bands and some not so good ones.
From what I have heard of such groups so far the music is mainly of middle tempo with traditional blasting Black Metal riffage being shunned in favour of more groove orientated arrangements.
This 2007 EP from Norway’s Stillhet fits nicely into the above description. So why am I reviewing it ? Well, it does fit into the above description but only in the same way as a humongous American bloated burger whore fits into a bulemic supermodel’s thongs. It is new style BM, no mistake about that, but Stillhet have retained a healthy portion of old school influence and sound which makes for an interesting mixture of both old and new. Stillhet means ‘silence’ but it is noisy as fuck.
After a somewhat tedious intro the first song blasts out of the speakers firing on all cylinders with blastbeat precision. Something which the intro really helps with, they tricked me! Once the main riff drops in and the vocals commence you’ll see what I mean about their style, its as grim and as spikey as a witch’s warty dried-up labias and sounds like it was written back in the early 90′s.
After a couple of minutes another riff enters the fray and makes you think its the start of the song again. It’s a great marker for the talent Stillhet display in the way they craft their songs. The next song is another blaster with some great guitar harmonies going on which leads into a meaty section which in turn degenerates nicely into another even chunkier arrangement.
It’s a welcome change to find minimal trace of verse, chorus, verse here. Although it sounds heavy, that is thanks to the bass and percussion, the guitars are raw and crisp.
Track 3 shows another side of the band. It’s a six minute opus packed with dark emotion and would be equally suitable for a BM wedding or funeral. Slower riffs interspersed with faster parts and the last 30 seconds of which are feedback but provides a bridge into the final song which is fairly straighforward compared to the rest. It rounds out the EP nicely though. The cover artwork is worthy of note too: as raw and nasty as the music itself.
This is way superior to any other new style BM bands that I have heard. It has purpose, integrity, balls and really aggressive and raw feeling rather than the boring, hollow drivel that similar bands seem intent on producing.
The fact that Dømt At Have Sit Liv Forbrudt is only an EP is really encouraging too, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Stillhet can carry over their momentum into a full length sometime soon. They’re a band that obviously has a lot of good and original ideas and are well worth checking out. Highly reccomended.
I admit I was more than a little sceptical when I got a request to review this Italian band. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a band that sounded more like some American gospel singers than satanic Black Metal! Thankfully after literally one second of listening my somewhat ridiculous assumptions were raped and pillaged [...]
I only recently discovered Rahu, who purvey original and very replayable Finish Black Metal of the highest calibre. This is a demo from 2008 that has since been released as part of a best of featuring this and their other demo on one CD. Although there are only three tracks delivering a mere seventeen minutes [...]
I had this EP and always like Stillhet simply raw and nasty.Like you say,hope they make a full length album.
too bad only 1 sample .. but good enough to convince me