Review by Allan on March 2, 2003.

Swedish death metal. American death metal. Everybody just seems to be a happy camper as long as their death metal fits into one of those categories, wouldn’t you say? If you stray, you pay, it seems. Maybe that’s why The Red Chord is hardly making a wave outside of their small circle, playing with other hardcore bands live (although this band is unmistakably death metal) and only being mentioned by a few death metal fans. Yet that doesn’t explain why so many reviews and opinions of the bands would be glistening.

To be honest, The Red Chord isn’t really tipping the scales in originality. Their debut album, “Fused Together In Revolving Doors,” is still death metal and there isn’t much you can do about that, save if it were a truly progressive effort. And it’s not, but that doesn’t really matter. “Fused Together In Revolving Doors” is an album that doesn’t really sound like something you’d here lately. Better yet, the ideas are actually creative. The songs are dynamic and unpredictable. They flow and are not just a pile of second-rate riffs that were slapped together without any discerning order. The musicianship is top-notch, and the production is absolutely killer.

There’s something extremely intelligent sounding about The Red Chord. Maybe it’s their hardcore influences, leaving no room for cheesy death metal antics. They play with the technicality of a band like The Dillinger Escape Plan or Converge and with the heaviness of a band like Immolation. Anyway, back to the point. What you get with each song on “Fused Together In Revolving Doors” is in fact creative and impressive. There are enough shifts in ‘Like A Train Through A Pigeon’ to please even the most impatient of listeners. The breakdowns found throughout “Fused Together In Revolving Doors” are also a welcome attribute to the fold. Anything in ‘Catalepsy’ is bound to make listeners shake in their boots. The Red Chord are even willing to throw in a few more twists and turns into their music. The melodic, clean guitar of ‘He Was Stretching, And Then He Climbed Up There’ is a good example. So is ‘Dreaming In Dog Years.’ You really just don’t see it being launched at you, and everything in the song seems like a highlight. Perhaps the most powerful song on “Fused Together In Revolving Doors” would be ‘Sixteen Bit Fingerprint’ for it’s excellent use of original guitar licks and the unexpected changes throughout it. It’s great to find an album that can really throw the necessary hooks at you throughout the duration of it enough times to make it rewarding and deserving of being played again. That about wraps this one up, except I might as well mention how impressive the production is. The drums actually sound like somebody is playing them. They’ve got depth to them, and the double bass drum actually has bass! Imagine that. The guitars sound excellent. Each note rings out clear and the guitar sound is thick, punchy and warm.

Bottom Line: It’s about time for death metal fans wake up and give The Red Chord a nod. Overflowing originality may not be on the menu, but at least creativity is, and it’s been cooked to some very high standards.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 8
Originality: 7
Production: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 8.6 out of 10

Review by Alex on December 6, 2020.

Just by the album art for Hulder's debut recording you could tell there would be a significant impact made on the first impressions of those discovering the project. And such was also the case with Embraced by Darkness Mysts that saw Hulder garner a huge cult following. For me it was that EP which poked at my attention and left me with much hopes that a full length album would follow suit in a short time span. Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry comes 1 year and some months since the release of Embraced By Darkness Mysts that arrives high off admiration for early 2nd wave black metal and first wave black metal. It's hard to not hear or just ignore the Bathory, Tsjuder, Ancient (Norway) and many other black metal bands of old that Hulder also borrows influences from. That's one of the reasons Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry is such a great album, there's this grey-area existing within the music in a sense that the music never remains as an exclusive asset to either period in black metal's history. And in addition to that, there's lengthy and interwoven ambient sections utilized on the record that somewhat blur the black metal at specific periods of time to the point in which you forget Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry is a black metal album. However it must also be noted that this feature also helps to strengthen the atmospheric backbone of the album and gives more meaning to the outstanding artwork. All this and you've got a black metal masterpiece of the current era.

The first two tracks being 'Upon Frigid Winds' and 'Creature of Demonic Majesty' are amazing at setting that old aggressive black metal aura with a flurry of blast beats and slight incisions of Darkthrone esque black'n'roll. Sounds like you're truly listening to black metal at the embryonic moments of its evolution as the keyboards are introduced subtly. With 'Down in Barren Soil' however, the atmospheric/ambient synth really takes control as you approach the middle section given its boastingly confident revelation. And this is only pushed up the ladder with exclusive ambient pieces such as 'De Dijle' and the keyboard intermezzo on 'A Forlorn Peasant's Hymn' that astoundingly support the album altogether providing clean and fluid segue to tracks such as 'Purgations of Bodily Corruptions', 'Lowland Famine' (both of which possess some of the best black metal instrumentation on Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry) and 'From Whence An Evil Ancient Once Reigned'. 'A Forlorn Peasant's Hymn' in particular reminds me much of some songs on Ancient's "The Cainian Chronicle" which is a good thing because I still enjoy listening to that record every now and again. The ambient pieces are also very soothing and have a sort of moonlit gaze or some kind of mystical hypnoticism about them providing contrast to the intense, flame-lit drumming and riffing. The ambient pieces also project a sort of dungeon synth vibe whether merged with a track such as 'Lowald Famine' or used exclusively on 'De Dejile', but retains enough space such that the black metal can function. You won't feel bombarded with synth, instead you'd find their appearances quite delightful and dreamy in some instances.

Project engineer Marz Riesterer vocals are dynamic and go back and forth amongst a mid ranged death metal gruffy howl, the traditional 2nd wave scream and throaty grunts that keeps Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry sounding fresh at all times. The production has a hazy sort of cloud over it that adds to the mystical keyboard synth on all tracks but does not get in the way of the black metal. In fact, it supports the guitars in particular whether it be the 1st wave black metal heavy metal licks or the tremolo picking. And as for the artwork, it's beautiful and will make you want to own the vinyl once it is released through the unholy monolith known as Iron Bonehead Records.

Godslastering: Hymns of A Forlorn Peasantry is a bold album for a single individual to create and given it has turned out so highly favorable with many anticipations of its dawning, one can only hope for more to come from Hulder soon.

Rating: 8.8 out of 10

Review by JD on July 18, 2010.

Originality is not a prerequisite for being good. You can be original, and still end up sounding like total shit (just ask the worst of the 80's hair band Wrathchild America). It helps having some level of originality going on for you, but it can be a huge weight around your neck. Now for the review.

Eternal Tears Of Sorrow is a band made up of a grouping of many varying styles...each of them as extreme as you can get. From Black to Doom and even taking a little from Viking and Neo-Classical metal. Just think if shredmaster Yngwie Malmsteen joined forces with a band such as Cradle Of Filth... and had the musical arrangements of Novembers Doom meets Nightwish.

Each track Eternal Tears Of Sorrow has seems to melt into one, and yet each song is a entity on its own as well. The whole album seems to all flow and ebb as you drift into a world of barbaric pain, abject fear, the bleakest of hopelessness and evil spawned blackness. This album can only be truly described as a blackened symphony that is both soaring angelic and yet hellbound to the fiery pits as well.

"Children Of The Dark Waters" is amazingly heavy, musically sweeping and lyrically quite haunting album that surprises you from the very first track to the last one. The album is so good that no matter what style of metal you normally would like, it will touch a part of you with its brutal grace and undeniable strength. This can be described nearly as classic metal album... an album that people need to hear.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9
Originality: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Review by JD on July 18, 2010.

Originality is not a prerequisite for being good. You can be original, and still end up sounding like total shit (just ask the worst of the 80's hair band Wrathchild America). It helps having some level of originality going on for you, but it can be a huge weight around your neck. Now for the review.

Eternal Tears Of Sorrow is a band made up of a grouping of many varying styles...each of them as extreme as you can get. From Black to Doom and even taking a little from Viking and Neo-Classical metal. Just think if shredmaster Yngwie Malmsteen joined forces with a band such as Cradle Of Filth... and had the musical arrangements of Novembers Doom meets Nightwish.

Each track Eternal Tears Of Sorrow has seems to melt into one, and yet each song is a entity on its own as well. The whole album seems to all flow and ebb as you drift into a world of barbaric pain, abject fear, the bleakest of hopelessness and evil spawned blackness. This album can only be truly described as a blackened symphony that is both soaring angelic and yet hellbound to the fiery pits as well.

"Children Of The Dark Waters" is amazingly heavy, musically sweeping and lyrically quite haunting album that surprises you from the very first track to the last one. The album is so good that no matter what style of metal you normally would like, it will touch a part of you with its brutal grace and undeniable strength. This can be described nearly as classic metal album... an album that people need to hear.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9
Originality: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Review by JD on April 30, 2012.

Death Metal. The name of this genre says it all, power, strength, crushing music and a fuck-you attitude. No where on earth knows how to make amazing Death Metal like Sweden. They have wrote the book on the whole Extreme Music scene, being the single most trailblazers as the decades pass.

Putting a rather large Death Metal footprint out to be seen is the one man outfit called Megascavanger. Roger "Rogga" Johansson is a firm fixture in the Death Metal scene in and around Sweden. Playing with and in a whopping seventeen bands so far, now he is putting out his own brand of Death Metal with some expert help of friends. It is venomously dark and yet melodic as fuck Death Metal that he offers up with unbridled aggression and unashamed passion.

With only two songs on this teaser of a EP, this will be swift. Both songs have the strong hallmarks of the greats of Death Metal ( Death, Cannibal Corpse), but it is what is there as well that tips the scales. There is flavours of Thrash, Black and even some Hardcore that fills out the sound. Heavy, deep and just plain nasty, Mr Johansson has come up with the right formulation to deliver some of the most melodic yet blood soaked heavy music ever put out.

I hope that ‘Captain Metal’ (His new name from me) puts out some more of the same and in a full album format as well. This is drop dead the best Melodic Death Metal in years and he should continue his quest for world metal dominance. He is the future of Death Metal. Long may he reign supreme.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:10
Atmosphere: 9.5
Production: 9
Originality: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 9.3 out of 10

Review by JD on April 30, 2012.

Death Metal. The name of this genre says it all, power, strength, crushing music and a fuck-you attitude. No where on earth knows how to make amazing Death Metal like Sweden. They have wrote the book on the whole Extreme Music scene, being the single most trailblazers as the decades pass.

Putting a rather large Death Metal footprint out to be seen is the one man outfit called Megascavanger. Roger "Rogga" Johansson is a firm fixture in the Death Metal scene in and around Sweden. Playing with and in a whopping seventeen bands so far, now he is putting out his own brand of Death Metal with some expert help of friends. It is venomously dark and yet melodic as fuck Death Metal that he offers up with unbridled aggression and unashamed passion.

With only two songs on this teaser of a EP, this will be swift. Both songs have the strong hallmarks of the greats of Death Metal ( Death, Cannibal Corpse), but it is what is there as well that tips the scales. There is flavours of Thrash, Black and even some Hardcore that fills out the sound. Heavy, deep and just plain nasty, Mr Johansson has come up with the right formulation to deliver some of the most melodic yet blood soaked heavy music ever put out.

I hope that ‘Captain Metal’ (His new name from me) puts out some more of the same and in a full album format as well. This is drop dead the best Melodic Death Metal in years and he should continue his quest for world metal dominance. He is the future of Death Metal. Long may he reign supreme.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:10
Atmosphere: 9.5
Production: 9
Originality: 9
Overall: 9

Rating: 9.3 out of 10