Setherial - Nord (1996)

Since their inception in the early 90's the Swedes in Setherial have more or less made a career out of making music quite common to other Nordic acts. 'Nord' their debut from '96 is often seen as a cousin or brother to Emperor's, 'In the Nightside Eclipse,' while the bands following record, 'Lords of the Nightrealm' wasn't too far off from sounding like a Marduk or Dark Funeral copy, though '99's, 'Hell Eternal' lightly re-introduced synths once again alongside with typical relentless blastbeats, hellish screams, Satanic lyrics and simple tremolo picked guitar parts.

Recorded in Abyss Studios in September of '95, 'Nord's' production is fairly similar to In the Nightside Eclipse with the hissing raw guitars, thick somewhat oppressive keyboard melodies, booming fast drum work and raspy trollish screams, although the overall volume of the recording is a bit low, which results in the listener having to turn the knobs way up or listening to it via headphones. Despite the production issues each of the six songs (43 mins. total) feature superb musicianship, its just that you've got to really pay attention because a lot of it is lost within the production. However once you really focus in on things you'll take notice of some absolutely colossal and catchy riffs and some utterly beautiful keyboard melodies.

The drum work (played by someone named Anders) although quite good is dominated by the sound of cymbals and double bass blasting, which yet again is quite similar to the way Faust's drums sounded. Nevertheless plenty of drum rolls and killer fills find their into the mix and it works quite well. The buzzing guitars are like a blizzardy onslaught alongside the drums and it creates a vibe of total darkness and wintry fury. Acoustic guitars are also spread out all over this recording, which often feature something of a depressive folk-ish vibe to them while some of the longer songs, such as, 'In The Still Of A Northern Fullmoon' & 'Över det blodtäckta nord' reach absolutely epic heights with their inclusion. The keyboards are exactly what you'd expect as they are foreboding, majestic and just plain gorgeous all at once.

In the end though my only real complaint with this recording is the low volume, which you'd expect to have been altered on the re-issue, but no dice. Sure the similarities to Emperor are obvious too, but holy fuck what's wrong with trying to emulate one of the greatest black metal records ever?!

Of course Setherial continues onwards today with six albums behind them and whether or not they ever explored any area outside that blast beat driven black metal area is beyond me. Therefore if you've spent many cold nights blasting In the Nightside Eclipse and want something similar then this would be the path to take because Nord is excellent.