Mørktår – Dark Years
Mørktår Dark Years Released 5th March 2015 Raw Black Metal Released via Mordgrimm Records
‘Dark Years’ is the debut EP from the London based, British black metal band Mørktår. The band originally started out as a solo project Thrym Mørktår back in 2006. ‘Dark Years’ is also the first Mørktår release in both CD and mp3 format. You will find it along with some of band’s early demos on their Bandcamp page (http://morktar.bandcamp.com/).
As soon as you press the play button you’re greeted by a barrage of raw screams, guitars and drumming, all sounding as though they were recorded deep in the depths of someone’s basement. This is about as raw and bleak as black metal can be. It sounds almost as though most of the music was captured in just one take and very little (if any) mixing was done to improve the overall sound quality.
Painful Dark Death is true to its namesake thanks to the vocalist’s screams of anguish and terror. The first few seconds of Worse Than Plague reminds me a little of Mayhem’s ‘Freezing Moon’ mostly due to the similarities in the vocal style which seems to alternate between a scream and a howling-like noise. The main difference here is that the production on here is even more raw than on any Mayhem track. The rest of the EP continues along the same path of cold and primitive black metal.
In summary the rawness and the nihilistic atmosphere are the two dominant features of this EP. This makes for some uneasy listening and having heard all six tracks I can safely say that I’ve had enough. To me it just sounds like a black metal demo; there’s some potential but it’s unfinished. Only a small very percentage of people might enjoy this. So you’re fan of ‘hard to find’, raw black metal demos then you might want give this EP a try.
2.5/5
Iza Raittila
Valkyrian Music 
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