Review by Felix on January 29, 2020.

I confess: my first vinyl was not AC/DC, Kiss or even Black Sabbath. As a child, I had some records with fairy tales or children’s stories about trolls, goblins and all that stuff. Almost 45 years later, I feel like I have gone back in time. Malokarpatan’s third album is also filled to the brim with gnomish stuff. Thank God, they did not forget to integrate some metallic parts as well. Anyway, it is not easy to find access to their sound. Firstly, five songs with a playtime of more than 48 minutes are always a difficult configuration and secondly, the crude mix of folklore, atmospheric sequences and black metal sections is challenging in itself. Finally, we are speaking about a concept album and we know that this does not make things easier. Needless to say, the story is about witches, mysterious supernatural apparitions and further stuff for hobby-esoterics.

Imagine an album which has been recorded exactly in the middle between the outskirts of the North Carpathian forests and a dwarfish parallel universe and maybe than you have an exact picture of the sound of Krupinské Ohne (“The Fires of Krupina”). Even during the metallic parts, there is always a kind of magic in the air and some ghostly shadows surround the listener. Speaking of the typical metal sequences, they are formed by vintage riffing (every now and then, the seventies shimmer through), a few straight and speedy parts and, last but not least, the narrative, dark voice of the lead singer. A lot of reverb on his vocals emphasizes the unreal overall picture. Sometimes I am quite unsure whether or not this is a coherent concept, but even after two previous, more or less very well comparable full lengths, the offering of the Slovakian defenders of quirky metal is still charming. Indeed, I wish they would focus more on their harshest side (which is, by the way, not that harsh…), but I also do not feel the urgent need to skip the other sections. Nevertheless, some unusual parts with equally unusual instruments do not work. The third song, for example, would have been better without the primitive keyboard intermezzo in its center. It sounds like a leftover of early Nocturnus and conveys an outer space feeling. Guess this part was contributed by the main dwarf from the other universe.

Does a band have a soul? If this is the case, Malokarpatan’s one belongs to the pretty melancholic specimen. And it has an almost dreamy facet as well. Maybe this is the reason why the guitar-dominated sections do not really create an evil atmosphere. The pretty blurred guitar tone and the voice rule the sound without reaching the medium degree of common evilness. Okay, the mother tongue of the lead vocalist sounds slightly menacing in my ears (and some ohoho-screams in the closer are truly terrible), but this alone does not form an album which can be described as true black metal. So here we have a traditional work with black ingredients and extraordinary additions. Malokarpatan do not lack ambitions, but we know that it is a very thin line between genius and insanity and my silent hope is that they go one step back, returning to songs which come faster to the point. Krupinské Ohne is still a good album with a robust substance, but the band is in danger to fall victim to their own overproduction of ideas. Or maybe I just cannot forget my infantile socialization. My first vinyls told much less complex stories than Malokarpatan.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 19, 2020.

Sometimes it’s a tough job to write a review, because one is confronted with an album that simply does not work. Although the band uses all elements it needs to pen a satisfying work, something is missing. Necronomicon’s Apocalyptic Nightmare is one of those outputs. Yes, there are rasping guitars and a proper degree of velocity. Moreover, I cannot identify technical flaws (don’t expect any form of Sodom-esque or old Kreator-like rumbling) and the lead vocalist does not do a bad job, although he lacks individuality and sounds like the little brother of Destruction’s Schmier.

The problem is that all these details have no relevance whenever a band is not able to put them together cleverly and make a good song out of it. Apocalyptic Nightmare was the second full-length of the combo, but Necronomicon’s song-writing skills were still alarmingly weak. All tracks pass by without triggering the wish to listen to them again. Already the opener simply forgets to draw the listener into the album. It’s not the biggest pain in the ass to consume the seven songs, by far not. But it’s shocking that an album full of riffs and high speed rhythms can leave such a feeble overall impression. Okay, the chorus of 'In Memory' with its slightly hardcore-influenced background shouts keeps sticking in the ear, but that’s all and that’s not much, to express it politely.

Necronomicon never stood on the sunny side of life. Mostly they received negative reviews in the German media of the eighties and not at least because of this fact I felt certain sympathy for them. Nonetheless, now I must admit that these reviews did not happen by chance. The four dudes string together a million riffs, but at the end of the day, everything is going nowhere. Obviously, the band sits between the two stools. On the one hand, their material is too straight to fascinate those maniacs who love it to listen to progressive and / or academic sounds. On the other hand, the songs do not have the power to make the underground smile sadistically. The integrity of the line-up is beyond doubt, but that’s not enough to catch the attention of the listener for a long time. The same goes for the production. I cannot say anything bad about it, but its quality doesn’t matter in view of the deficiencies of the songs.

Probably the quartet became the victim of its own ambitions. The overlong songs paint a heterogeneous picture and maybe the stupid artwork mirrors the compositional flaws involuntarily. What does the magician do with an impaled head? Why is this scene witnessed by an oversized skull? In short, the cover is ridiculous. And although this is not the word I want to use to describe the seven songs of Apocalyptic Nightmare, I understand very well why this work fell on deaf ears.

Rating: 3.8 out of 10