Pyre
Behold A Pale Horse (cd)
Wydane przez Black Blood ProductionsRok wydania 2005Kraj USANapisał Wouter7
For a band hailing from El Paso, Texas the Pyre trio sound convincingly European. Like their Scandinavian brethren Pyre go for the low-fi approach in the production department. The guitars sound thin, the drums are hollow and the whole record is drenched in the typical 'necro' atmosphere. "Behold A Pale Horse" reminds me a lot of Enthroned's "Regie Sathanas" mini. Raum, vocalist/guitarist and founder of Pyre, has a rather effective black metal shriek, Lecher provides session bass on this recording, but is never heard and drummer Megiddo is skilled, varied and proficient behind his kit. His use of cymbals is far more interesting than usually in this genre. He could very well have been a death metal drummer. The album starts off with a rather chaotic intro (which almost sounds to be taken from a '70s exploitation flick) 'Black Thaumaturge' proves all bets are off. Pyre isn't going to play nice and this track perfectly illustrates what the rest of this record has in store for its listeners. Dominating this record are mostly straightforward black metal blasts in the traditional Scandinavian style, which although delivered in a technical good manner, all sound rather samey. It is in the slower cuts ('Strigoi Mort', 'Eyes Of the Dead', 'Ten and Forty Centuries') that Pyre really shines. In the final act of "Behold A Pale Horse" there's also a Darkthrone cover to be found in 'En Vind av Sorg'. Pyre have studied their genre classics quite well and for an American black metal act they have nailed the European sound with flair. Aside from the expected hokey stage names, evil lurking at graveyards, corpse paint and war imagery that adorn this record there's hardly anything bad to say about Pyre. Certainly they aren't the most innovative or original in their chosen field but there are far worse records out there than "Behold A Pale Horse".
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