Rating: 7.6

Country: Spain

Genre: Pagan Black Metal

Record Label: Black Tower Productions

Release Date: 2008

Track list:
1.Intro
2.Desolated batlefields
3.Hammers agains the crosses
4.Fire purification
5.The march of the broken souls
6.As one with the woods

Band Website: Carcharoth

Carcharoth - Desolated Battlefields

It used to be the case that if you asked me for good black metal from Spain, I'd shrug and state I didn't know of any. But the last couple of years I've noticed a growing number of great black metal outfits from Spain and Carcharoth can certainly number itself amongst them.

On the surface Carcharoth are another in a long line of Norway worshiping bands, in Carcharoth's case Burzum and early Gorgoroth for the grim melodicism and Kampfar for the pagan inspired riffing. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, there's a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism and Carcharoth mostly takes their sources as inspiration for their own personal takes on Norse black metal riffing. And such exquisite riffing it is. These guys have their song writing skills down pat. There's never a moment were a melody or rhythm is just haphazardly tossed in, nor do they follow the standard minimalist template of “riff 1 x 4 – bridge – riff 2 x 4 – end song” that usually makes my eyes roll in annoyance. No, these songs go somewhere and the riffs have genuine character. Even when they start out in the more standard Norse riffing-style (as in "Fire Purification") the song will develop itself in interesting directions and maintain a chilling and vengeful atmosphere throughout. This is the main difference between Carcharoth and most Norway copy-cats; they know what these riff-techniques mean and they use these as building blocks for their own well-developed ideas instead of merely emulating them for their own sakes.

It's only a tad exasperating that they sound like an excellent Norwegian band, in the sense that I don't really notice their Spanish origin in their sound much, barring some sporadic occasions like the folk-intro and some of  the excellent lead and bass lines on "The March of Broken Souls" (and even those are set to a backdrop of Burzumic rhythms and some typically Norwegian dirgelike powerchords). As awesome as these are, it would perhaps be even more exemplary if in the future they started using melodies and riffs more inspired by their own national folk-traditions, given the fact that lyrically they are all about the preservation of their cultural heritage.

Barring this small niggle this is really an excellent exemplar of second wave Norse-styled black metal. This is a great debut and here's to hoping that their future endeavours will allow them to step out from under the wings of Norway.

September 14th, 2008