“Bands change and sounds evolve. These are the most inescapable truisms in music regardless of genre, with only AC/DC and maybe Sodom resisting the inevitable flux. The last time I reviewed a Secrets of the Moon album way back in 2012 they were a somewhat progressive black metal act endeavoring to mix goth elements into their sound. Now Secrets of the Moon no longer play black metal in any way, shape or form.” Evolve or die.
“1994 was an amazing year for all forms of metal music. It was also a transitional year for one Johan Edlund, most famous as the guitarist/vocalist/founder of a little Swedish metal group called Tiamat. 1992’s Clouds was a breakthrough album for Edlund and his crew of death metal merry-men, but even with the album’s success, Edlund was not satisfied with the sound or results of that album. So, in an interesting turn of events, he fired the entire band (save for bassist Johnny Hagel), hired session musicians, brought his love of Pink Floyd to the forefront, and created one of the most engaging, amorphous, and creative albums ever released with the Century Media label: the still bewitching and beautifully crafted Wildhoney.” It’s about damn time we drool all over this classic!
This is an odd one indeed. Basically, Sarke is a side project for Thomas Berglie (Old Man’s Child, Khold) and he handles all the instruments here. He recruited Nocturno Culto (Darkthrone) to do the vocals and together they released Vorunah in 2009 and now they’re back with Oldarhian. Although both men come from black metal backgrounds, Sarke is not a black metal band. Instead they play a mix of traditional heavy metal, Cemetary, Tiamat and new Darkthrone with some extra punk tossed in for good measure. The music is very stripped down, simplistic and not exceptionally heavy. At least for Nocturno, this material isn’t a big departure since it’s similar to Darkthrone albums like Circle the Wagons and F.O.A.D. Keeping their sound fairly consistent with the Vorunah album, Oldarhian offers more of their basic metal-punk fusion and while it has some enjoyable, rocking songs, it doesn’t completely work for me as a whole.
