Review by JD on February 24, 2012.

Norway is not the end all and be all place to find good Black Metal anymore. Fact of the matter is that Black Metal has been coming from far from the epicentre of the darkened music capital. Black Metal is coming from everywhere across our world, spreading its dark, damnation fuelled message on to an unsuspecting and naive world. England, Canada, the US and many other countries are now developing a growing and very masterful BM scene.

German based Old Pagan had started in 1996 as a one man diabolic juggernaut out to rewrite what Black Metal was, but after many years with building a complete band and maturing as musicians -they have developed into the fearsome pain and brimstone powered hellwagon that has landed on the North American shores to make their presence known one blast beat at a time. God is scared... and he should be judging by what I am hearing.

This very short four song EP is baleful as hell, bordering on being violent orgasms. Nothing subtle here, just some of the purest and rawest Black Metal. No delightful cute overdubs or Def Leppard like pop inspired radio friendly formulas here, just plainly heavy and evil sounding metal that has these grinding vocals that seem to come from the fire stoked bowels of Hades while the bass shakes the very foundation of heaven apart note by note. It is not pretty, but it is so damned good.

Old Pagan has shown that raw and aggressive Black Metal is still being made, and made in the tradition of Bathory and others. Christians everywhere are very worried and scared out of their minds. These will be the first to die a bloodied death, I guess. Humour aside, this is pure undiluted Black Metal at its rawest form that bubles up from the flames of hell... and it is just fucking good.

Categorical Rating Beakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9 (the rawness makes it amazing)
Originality: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 9 out of 10