Valkyrian Music

 Vörst
 Roots of a Frostbitten Land
 Released 4th October 2020
 Raw Black Metal
 Self-Released

‘Roots of a Frostbitten Land’ is the first EP from the Texas-based, American black metal artist Vörst. What an interesting location, and definitely not one that you would typically associate with black metal… The project was launched last year and the artist claims to have been brought up in the mountains by a family of “deathtrolls”. Right, this is going to be fun!

So after a few listens I can safely state that this belongs in the raw black metal category. It really sounds like it was recorded in someone’s basement to an audience consisting of the artist’s cat or dog and a possible sacrificial goat. The vocals, if I can even call them vocals, are grim as hell. They sound more like a wolf howling. My guess is that he was trying to sound like Abbath (ex-Immortal) but with only limited success. There is not much that I can say about the drums as they are mostly in the background, with the notable exception of Inside Satan’s Abyss where they add more variety to the song. The guitar work is gritty and unrefined but ultimately the best part of the music. I liked the guitar parts on City Witch, one of the more memorable tracks on here.

Overall, raw metal not meant to be pleasant to listen to. This is pretty much much what I expected to hear based on the description. Hardly a masterpiece but not an entire disaster for an artist allegedly raised by trolls.

5/10

Iza Raittila

This entry was posted on 1st December 2020 at 9:41 am and is filed under Review with tags Black Metal, Vörst. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.