Endless Blizzard - Remember Your Death (2008)

Endless Blizzard's origins date back to nearly the mid 90's with the debut demo, 'Guillotine Technocracy,' however silenced followed the band until 2003 when another demo called, 'Beyond the Frozen Gates' appeared. I must admit I didn't become aware of Endless Blizzard until the summer of 2005 when a friend brought the bands music to my attention and luckily shortly there after the aforementioned demo was re-released as a split with Gromm from the Ukraine. A few more years have passed since that split, but finally this one man band lead by Roskva Stramaglio released a full length album titled, 'Remember Your Death' in 2008.

Musically the nine songs presented on Remember Your Death don't drift to far away from the bands raw black metal roots, but what is clear is that the musicianship is considerably better, the production has improved, the music has an even stronger rocking characteristic to it at times, and the album is augmented by a few short synth pieces throughout the album too. Personally I really found myself enjoying tracks 2, 3, and 5 the best with plenty of great rocking head banging moments, in fact I wouldn't hesitate to say, 'Arcane Dimension' is one of the best black metal songs I've heard in recent years.

It's also interesting how at times Roskva's music even touches on a bit of an epic territory, which immediately makes me think of Bathory's classic, 'Blood Fire Death.' As well the vocal delivery is absolute raw visceral hatred for mankind, which is generally the way I prefer black metal voices to sound. Furthermore due to the perfect placement of the synth tracks it makes the whole experience worthwhile and interest is maintained throughout the forty nine minutes of this album.

Furthermore I must admit the layout and the graphics within the booklet are quite good too and thankfully are devoid of the lame advertisements that almost always grace the tray cards of blackmetal.com releases.

Remember Your Death is surely one of the strongest black metal releases to come out of America in recent years and if you have any appreciation for the genre you truly owe it to yourself to give this album a listen.