Gorgoroth
Under the Sign Of Hell 2011 ()
Wydane przez Regain RecordsRok wydania Kraj NorwayNapisał Wouter3
Re-recordings are hardly a new phenomenom in the metal world. Arch Enemy, Destruction, Dimmu Borgir, Exodus, Satan’s Host, Sodom and Vader among many other have seen it a viable business practice to re-record older, harder to find and sometimes forgotten song material within their current line-up and production facilities. While a small percentage of these re-recordings are actually warranted (Destruction, Satan’s Host, Sodom, Vader) the great majority of them are thinly veiled cashgrabs for an audience too thick-skulled to notice that they’re being robbed blind. Joining the ranks is now infamous Norwegian blasphemists Gorgoroth, who have seen fair share of drama over the last years. It could be argued that the original "Under the Sign Of Hell" had questionable production values, those that even bordered on demo territory. That not withstanding it was a product of its time and a powerful and timeless statement of scathing black metal adversity in its sheer primitive butchery. The basic instrumental skill and shoddy production added a lot of character and atmosphere to the album, something which this re-recording is sorely lacking. With Gorgoroth’s current line-up sharing some members of this classic recording session, the question still remains whether it was necessary to taint the legacy of this band’s best record. In comparison to the original version the 2011 incarnation suffers from all flaws of contemporary recording practices. Cut at drummer Tomas Asklund’s Monolith Studio the drums are unusually high in the mix, the riffs sound inert and lifeless while Thomas ‘Pest’ Kronenes’ vocals sound uninterested and miss every sort of bite and venom. The album is delivered true-to-form and while the original’s production was open to scrutiny and improvement, this re-recording and too slick production job allude to problems where there were none. There are numerous of small alterations implemented that will surely rub fans of the original the wrong way. For example, the solo in ‘The Rite Of Infernal Invocation’ has been omitted adding insult to injury to fans of the original sessions. The clean vocals in ‘Blood Stains the Circle’ have been replaced with growls, the choir-like chants in ‘Funeral Procession’ and the ambient interludes in songs such as ‘Profetens Apenbaring’ have been excised. For reasons unknown Roger Tiegs also handled bass guitar on this re-recording, leaving observant fans to wonder why they bothered hiring Frank Watkins (ex-Obituary) in the first place. In a time of global economic breakdown and recession, a time of dwindling record sales and the continual struggle for musicians, distributors and labels to survive in a rapidly changing world that considers music but a throwaway product – one wonders why delusional, self-glorifying – and ultimately redundant projects like this continue to be greenlit.
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