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nordik battle signs - CMI.66

I think I should say at first thayt even though Maschinenzimmer 412's first album "Macht durch Stimme" stayled for a long time in my CD player, the next two albums of the then renamed MZ 412 were not to my taste (probably because I've never been into black metal). This fourth opus, on the other hand, seems to come back to more industrial things, letting behind the black metal screams and guitars. Finally, it's the last MZ 412 album to date, released before the Folkstorm invasion.

First surprise: past the short introduction, the first track "Algiz - Convergence of life and death" features Tomas or Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio and sounds very close to this project's music (which means far away from MZ 412's past productions). Then, the whole CD stays far less rhythmic, and more sample-based, than the previous ones. A lot of tracks features prominent voice samples taken from speeches or movies, MZ 412 featuring even several members of the CMI discussion list as a "choir" on "Satan Jugend II: Global Konquering".

Musically speaking, "Nordik battle signs" contains a lot of mid paced harsh drones, not really aggressive, but too heavy and pounding to be ambient. They are well done and well integrated with grunting soundscapes. The whole thing is very well produced and bears the typical CMI mark of quality. Some deep tunes and basses are also used, giving a darker feeling on some tracks ("NBS Act I: Begravning", for example). All in all, this album flows quite easily and will seem shorter than it really is (47 minutes).

Even though I'm still not a big fan of the heavily satanistic voice samples ("when white is the color of death, black is the color of life"...), I found the music really good on this CD. MZ 412 have progressed a lot between this one and the previous one, and are a really interesting band once again. "Evil" dark industrialists will rejoice like crazy, and even the other one should risk an ear in "Nordik Battle Signs".

Nicolas

Cold Meat Industry is a label which release a lot of pretentious and boring music among the good stuff. This is "True Swedish Black Industrial". The band image doesn't impress me, the least. If you combine satanism and right wing-flirting with song titles like "Der Kampf geht weiter", I find it to be a severe case of really bad taste.

Can the music save this band from being chopped to pieces by me? No, I'm afraid not. The music is sleepy and sounds like a lot of other sleepy and meaningless stuff coming from Cold Meat Industry. Sometimes the soundscapes on this album can be compared to sitting next to a washing machine going in slow-motion. If you think that's nice, you'd better buy this but otherwise I doubt you'll appreciate it.

JOHAN ASTEMARK