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The latest reviews to be added will always be added on top of the page. This does not mean they are written or published in that order. Latest review added: September 6, 2005.
III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album]2002 Avantgarde Music 1. Mörda Dig Själv... 2. Svart Industriell Olycka 3. Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie 4. Submit To Self-destruction 5. Till Minne Av Daghen 6. Fields Of Faceless Kvarforth: Lead & Rhythm Guitars, and Vocals Phil A. Cirone: Bass & Keys Hellhammer: Drums Inisis: Rhythm Guitars Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Here we have the third album of the Swedish Black Metal band called Shining, on the scene since 1996, when Kvarforth, mastermind of the band, founded it and published a first 7'' called "Submit To Self Destruction". In the following years two full-length album were released and now this "III- Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie" saw the light where the "III" indicates the serial number of the album. What Kvarforth offers, or better imposes, us is a deadly, depressive and suicidial Black metal, slow, evil and perverted. And, hell, he really knows what he does! From the first song we can understand what we are going towards: in fact Mörda Dig Själv… means precisely Kill yourself… After severe line up changing, Shining now probably have their best formation: Kvarforth at the voice and the guitar, Phil A.Cirone [younger brother of the previous bassist Tusk] at the bass and the keyboards, Insis as second guitar and the great Hellhammer "drummer of drummers" as well defined in the Shining biography on the official website. Heavy and depressive are maybe the two adjectives that better can define the sound [clear, sharp and killer…Abyss Studios trademark….] of this album: Kvarforth is not a "trendy Blackster" and we can see his profound seriousness inside his depressive lyrics, with simply no hope at all, and behind the complex but terribly direct arrangements. His screams of anguish come from a throat torn apart and the obsessive guitar riffing is hypnotic; the bass lines of Phil A.Cirone creates an oppressive wall of sound around you while the drumming of Hellhammer is perfect and dynamic as always and introduces continuous variations in the rhythmic, without seems to be unbounded, alterning perfectly the pounding double bass with smart games of cymbals. The songs are well structured, combining acoustic and desolate passages which creates an atmosphere of sterile solitude with more classical fast BM beating parts, full of hatred and anguish. A particular mention goes to "Till Minne Av Daghen" an instrumental track performed by Cirone with a clavinet played with the accompaniment of the sound of a cold wind, and to Svart Industriell Olycka, [Black Industrial Misery] personally my favourite song, which gives you perfectly the feeling of a walk through an empty, dark and wet industrial slum. Is it a masterpiece of suicidial Black Metal? Yes it is. If you hate human beings, and if you like to listen this kind of music in your dark room whit black candles burning, well, this is an album that will leave a deep scar on you. You can’t lose it. Rating: 9 / 10 Reviewed by: Sephiroth Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Perfekt till höstdepressionerna släpper svenska Shining sin tredje fullängdare. Det har hänt en hel del i Shininglägret sen Livets Ändhållplats, Man har bytt skivbolag till Avantgarde Music och Alla gamla medlemmar förutom huvudmannen Kvarforth är borta och har ersatts med bla. Hellhammer! Ja detta norska trummirakel smiskar nu skinn i Shining och hans tekniska spel förgyller hela Angst. För er som inte hört Shining kan man som bäst beskriva dem som ett Bethlehem med mer blackmetal och mindre underliga utspel. Shining har en nära unik förmåga att lyckas skapa ren ångest med sin musik, många band som kör på samma tema (Abyssic hate,Bethlehem,Forgotten tomb) lyckas inte få fram samma iskalla ångest och hat som shining om och om igen lyckas med. Detta är något av det bästa som släppts i Sverige, nånsin! Det enda jag har lite svårt för på den här skivan är den helinstrumentala Till Minne Av Daghen som innehåller nån extremt jobbig synth. Shining lyckas alltså igen med sin plågade snigelfartsblackmetal, ångesten finns där, trumspelet är lysande och en innan lite saknad aggresivitet finns där nu, Shining har hittat rätt, detta är perfekt! Rating: 9.5 / 10 (Shining über Alles!) Reviewed by: Mikael Görtz SWEDISH - English translation unavailable at the moment. Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Let me begin by stating that is the best Swedish black metal album I have ever heard. Shining, as a concept, embraces all things vile and destructive in the human nature and its world, and the band does this with music that can be described as a modern, quite original, mix of the very best of Burzum and Dark Throne. Such a description doesn't suffice for much though, as this album is far too varied and creative in its content for any comparisons to do it justice. There are technicalities involved in this making that proclaim witness of the talents behind it. The depth of the music is impressive compared to the genre in general. With Hellhammer behind the drum-set, Shining has refrained from blasting away at the super-human speeds obviously at their disposal (well, mostly...), instead, Kvarforth and his crew has created a darkly melodic epos of tormented beauty - that ought to speak to the very soul of all true black metallers. What else does one ask for? Rating: 10 / 10 Reviewed by: Totalscorn Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music With their first two albums of excellent quality, ‘Within Deep Dark Chambers’ and ‘Livets Ändhållplats’, SHINING has begun to get quite a name in the black metal underground. And with this new album, they put all the chances on their side, and it’s obvious (at least to me) that this band deserves to be really worshipped. What happened is that SHINING has left Selbstmord, the label of the guitarist/singer Kvarforth (who has released among others FORGOTTEN TOMB, CRAFT, and ONDSKAPT), for Avantgarde, one of the most cult labels! Else, they returned once again to record at the Abyss Studios, and this time the sound is even better than in the past. The icing on the cake is that the new drummer is none other than Hellhammer, who plays here in a quite slow style compared to his other bands. In brief, ‘Angst’ is composed of six tracks of hyper suicidal and depressive black metal, very repetitive, and not far from a certain BURZUM, with vocals that show what madness and suffering really are. For those who know, the acoustic passages of ‘Livets Ändhållplats’ are gone, but ‘Angst’ will pervert your weak soul anyway. This is an album that you should listen to with maximum volume, alone in a dark room, with a vodka bottle in one hand and a razor blade in the other. Rating: 9 / 10 Reviewed by: Thomas Bonnicel Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music SHINING, the emissary of depressive suicidal black metal music, have finished their third full-length album, this time released by Italian label Avantgarde. Much like the two previous SHINING albums, "Angst" presents oppressive and haunting black metal with monotonous and repetitive riffs, gloomy atmosphere and of course, anguish. This time, however, it seems like SHINING have found even better their very own style and direction as the music is even darker and more hypnotic than before. Tempo is mostly mid-paced or slow, but some faster parts have been fitted in the music, too. I find it a bit disturbing that the first three tracks are clearly the better half of the album as tracks 4 & 5 vary from other tracks a little. Ironically, "Submit to Self-Destruction" is probably the "happiest-sounding" song on the whole album, while "Till Minne Av Daghen" has been made by Phil A. Cirone and is a non-metallic instrumental song. But these two tracks are not bad either, they just aren't as good as the rest of the tracks. But what really is a highlight track on this album, is the second track. Shit, this must be one of the best blackmetal songs of all time, in my opinion of course. I really find the mainriff of this song so depressing and dark I almost want to kill myself forthe sake of it. Somehow its haunting feeling reminds me of Halloween, the legendary horror movie from the eighties. Soundwise everything is just perfect, which is no big surprise as the album has been recorded in Abyss studios, at least to my knowledge. Vocals are suffering black metal screams and fit extremely well in the music. Drums have been played by (in)famous Hellhammer, but luckily his playing doesn't get too technical, even though it tries to slip to more technical side at certain points. On the whole I find this release as best Shining album so far and if you think you can handle atmospheric and depressive black metal, try this. Recommended to listen by candlelight with a sharp knife. Rating: Legendary Release Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Shining est la preuve incarnée que l’on peut être complètement déstructuré mentalement et produire une musique exceptionnelle. Prônant la décadence à son paroxysme, la destruction physique et mentale, l’aliénation sous toute ses formes, Shining ne vise pas pour autant la reconnaissance par ses excès mais par une musique fantastique, qui risque de vous clouer aux enceintes pour un nombre d’heures phénoménal. Prenant ses racines dans un esprit black métal, Shining diverge vers le métal au sens large pour nous surprendre à chaque retournement de situation, pour sortir des terre des ambiances hallucinantes et magnétiques, qui prennent le temps de vous hypnotiser sur des chansons très longues. Car les ambiances sont prédominantes chez Shining, presque effrayantes, et l’on ne se rend même pas compte que 10 minutes viennent de s’écouler depuis le début de la chanson. La production est excellente et participe à l’unité sans faille de cet album, au même titre que HellHammer, reconnaissable au premier coup de cymbale, et qui est sans aucun doute pour beaucoup dans la beauté de ce disque, en insufflant aux moments opportuns les changements de rythmes qui redonnent vie aux voyages émotionnels que représentent les chansons. Mariage imparable de l’extrémisme lyrique et de l’excellence musicale, III/Angst est le summum de la décadence et de la perversion et à coup sûr un album déjà culte. Noir, très noir et envoûtant, III/Angst est indispensable à tout amateur de métal et de musiques sombres. Reviewed by: Nikö FRENCH - English translation unavailable at the moment. Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Die Schweden Shining unternehmen mit ANGST ihren dritten Versuch, die Menschheit von der Notwendigkeit der Selbstvernichtung zu überzeugen. Offenbar gelten solche auto-zerstörerischen Tendenzen auch für die Band, denn deren geistiger Anführer Kvarforth hat schon mehr als zehn Bandmitglieder verschlissen, was aber den Vorteil hat, dass auf dem neuen Album der omnipräsente Hellhammer die Schlagstöcke schwingt. Zum Glück folgte bisher niemand den textlichen Aufrufen zum Suizid, wie bei 'Mörda Dig Själv...' oder 'Submit To Self-destruction', weshalb Shining weiterhin doomigen Black Metal spielen können. Musikalisch gibt es nur wenige Verwandte - so besteht eine ähnliche Gesinnung bei den Norwegern Khold, die aber brachialer und direkter zu Werke gehen. Die gemeinsame bleierne Schwere und frostige Langsamkeit drückt sich bei Shining dagegen wesentlich filigraner aus, denn die Gitarren klingen vergleichsweise klar, auch bei den durch pfeilschnelle Anschläge erzeugten kriechenden Melodien, und das differenzierte Schlagzeugspiel von Hellhammer betont diese zerbrechliche Feinheit nochmals nachhaltig. Ähnlichkeiten mit den westlichen Nachbarn bestehen wiederum in den monoton-hypnotischen, weiten Klang-Landschaften, welche die Schweden erzeugen. Weit entfernt vom rohen Primitiv-Black Metal, ist ANGST ein schwarzer Diamant von albtraumhafter Schönheit. Rating: 6 / 7 Reviewed by: Gunnar Sauermann GERMAN - English translation unavailable at the moment. Shining III - Angst, Självdestruktivitetens Emissarie [Album] 2002 Avantgarde Music Daþ SHINING die Black Metal Entdeckung der letzten Jahre ist, steht auþer Frage. Auf ihrem nunmehr dritten Album (die ersten beiden erschienen auf dem hauseigenen Label Selbstmord Services) man-vriert sich das schwedisch/norwegische Joint Venture (Hellhammer verdrischt mittlerweile die Felle) wieder in unendliche Weiten menschlicher Abgr¸nde. SHINING sind ein dunkler, garstig kreischender Moloch, bereit Schmerz und Tod zu s"hen. Das Licht meidet SHINING allein schon Angst, selbst darin zu versinken und zu vergehen. Der Puls aller Endlichkeit treibt SHINING voran. Schleifend und machtvoll wallen Gitarren voll brachialer Grausamkeit, finster kriecht Kreischgesang ¸ber die Wipfel der Finsternis. Schwarze Blitze zucken im Takt des Untergangs, der Himmel -ffnet sein Pforten zum finalen Akt. Wenn dich dann diese Blitze treffen, wenn dir explosionsartig klar wird, wie klein, endlich und makaber dieses Schauspiel ist, welches sich Leben nennt, wirst du vielleicht verstehen, was SHINING meinen, wenn sie von "Suicidal Happiness" sprechen. Und irgendwie schreit mich mein Unterbewuþtsein verdammt laut an, daþ es SHINING tats"chlich ernst meinen. Und genau dieses Gef¸hl macht SHINING so speziell und interessant. Sie sind keine besonders b-se Black Metal Band, aber sie sind so finster und schwarz, wie ich mir eine Black Metal Band im Grunde vorstelle. Dieser Entsprechung in meinem Kopf werden aber dummerweise nur die allerwenigsten Black Metal Bands¸ berhaupt gerecht. Obwohl SHINING Mastermind Kvarforth sicherlich musikalisch andere Wege geht, ist er f¸r mich "hnlich faszinierend wie Ihsahn. Die Intensit"t von ergreifender Black Metal Musik ist ausschlieþlich mit der Tiefe menschlicher Abgr¸nde im Kopfe des Komponisten verbunden. Und Kvarforth mit Ihsahn zu vergleichen, dr"ngt sich geradezu auf. Wer bislang noch nie etwas von SHINING geh-rt hat, dem rate ich es, alsbald nachzuholen. Es ist in der Tat ein Erlebnis der allerfinstersten Art. Rating: 14 / 15 Reviewed by: VW GERMAN - English translation unavailable at the moment. |
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