Arist:Endless Battle
Country:Ukraine
Type:Full-length
Release date:07/12/2013
Label:Werewolf Promotion
Format:CD
Limitation:1000 copies

Brotherhood of Hate

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  • 1.
    Summoning the Old Winds08:45
  • 2.
    Hateful Energy04:11
  • 3.
    Manifest of Destruction03:42
  • 4.
    Eternal Sunset08:05
  • 5.
    Forest06:35
  • 6.
    Lord of Thousand Storms08:59

The Review

Endless Battle is a three member band from Ukraine, which released its first full length album in December of 2013. The band was formed in 2009 and released its demo in 2011. So after two years the time has come for its first full length work that is called “Brotherhood of Hate”. This album contains six compositions of overall duration of forty minutes. By the artwork of the album, the listener can understand in about which path the band is walking. The dark, black and white cover and the old school, black and white photos lead you to think of a band of the old, European Black Metal sound. For this band applies the phrase “it is what it seems to be”, that is old school, raw, harsh Scandinavian Black Metal in the straightforward style of the traditional bands.

So here, the listener will not come across technical riffs or complicated compositions, but harsh, straightforward and in quite a lot of parts monotonous Black Metal with harsh, brutal riffs full of hatred, passion and intensity. The rhythm mainly is fast, while there are enough passages of medium speed that depending on the feeling and the atmosphere they are dark and cold or epic. Concerning the quality, we will find some quite interesting riffs but some boring or repetitive ones too, something that it may make the listener divided as one good idea is not followed by one of the same quality and like that the continuity and progression of the composition is somewhat ruined. The tracks last between 4 and 9 minutes and, especially in the longer tracks, the structure is somehow repetitive and tedious. This is also an element that will make the listener lose his interest for the album.

Now, regarding the side of the instrumentation and of the sound result, the band has done a very discriminating work. The guitars have harsh, distorted sound but they can be clearly heard and they are played with much passion and intensity, they deliver the atmosphere to the listener flawlessly. The lines of the bass are quite clear and audible, they are fast and they fill the sound well. The drums are brutal, fast, with a lot of changes regarding the rhythm and style, beautiful turnings and massive passages. They give depth to the compositions and they make them more brutal and interesting. The vocals are harsh Black Metal vocals, quite monotonous regarding their color, but quite passionate, they fit to the style of the compositions. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained in cd. The band connects nature with the metaphysical as it talks about forests, mountains, frozen landscapes, but mentioning also the powers, the energy and the Demons hidden in these with a more pagan view.

The first full length work Endless Battle is indeed an endless battle between the good ideas and the raw talent of the band with their weaknesses regarding the composition and the structure. Generally I don’t think that “Brotherhood of Hate” is a bad effort. It has its good moments and shows some good elements for the band. On the other hand it has quite a lot of weaknesses which show that the band has to work a little harder for improving the parts I mentioned before. Those of you who are fans of the old, Scandinavian sound and you are looking for a release like this, listen to the album. The rest of you prefer another one.