Emperor are a band from Norway that has been featured before in this zine and are one of the most well known and famous Norwegian black metal bands of all time and this is a review of their classic 1994 album "in The Nightside Eclipse" which will be re-issued by Candlelight Records in the year of 2014 and contains bonus tracks on both disc's as well as the second disc being an alternate mix of the album.
A very dark sounding intro starts off the album along with some atmospheric synths and after the intro the music starts going for a more fast and raw black metal sound along with blast beats and grim sounding high pitched black metal screams as well as adding more atmosphere into the synths and after awhile the band starts utilizing more melody into their musical sound.
As the album progresses the band starts utilizing a mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts as well as adding spoken word parts into certain sections of the recording and even after 20 years the music sounds very powerful and atmospheric as well as showing a musical style that modern Norwegian black metal lacks these days.
You can hear a lot of elements in the synths that a lot of later bands copied and took into a more symphonic genre but Emperor on this album showed how synths where suppose to sound when mixed with black metal and the music on this recording never loses its raw aggression even during the atmospheric moments and a good portion of the tracks are very long and epic in length and on some of the later songs clean playing is added into the music briefly before returning back to a heavier direction and on the last track there is a brief use of clean singing being utilized.
The bonus tracks originally appeared on the demo and are re-done this time around along with a better sounding production while still having the rawness of the original versions which where some of the truest black metal you could find in the early 90's and the music also has the atmosphere of the full length albums, the alternate mix of the album has a more dark and raw feeling to it and the last 3 songs are pre-production tracks that where recorded before the album and have a more primitive feeling to them as well as lacking the power of the versions that eventually made the full length.
Emperor created one of the early Norwegian black metal masterpiece's off all time with this album and even 20 years alter it still sounds very powerful and better than a lot of newer bands that have tried to follow in this album's footstep's and this album today even influences younger bands, the production has a very powerful sound to it while the lyrics cover Satanism, Occultism, Darkness and Nature themes.
In my opinion this was a very great sounding recording from Emperor and while everybody that has been into black metal for a long time probably already owns this album I would recommend it the younger generation that would be interested in hearing the beginnings of second wave black metal. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Into The Infinity Of Thoughts" "Cosmic Keys to My Creation And Times" and "I Am The Black Wizard". 8/9 out of 10.
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