Under the Sign of the Black Sun

Under the Sign of the Black Mark is a split album in which two bands from the Polish scene participate. The first one that the first five compositions belong to, is Raus!, which is the side project of Shadow from Black Altar. The second part of the album belongs to Perunwit, one old band, they were formed in 1994, with a lot of releases until today. So, this album contains ten compositions of overall duration of forty minutes. The music that Raus! present to us is harsh, warlike, Thrashy Black Metal with various industrial references and many ambient elements. On the contrary, the music of Perunwit is clearly ambient.

The material of Raus! begins with a symphonic track, played by classical instruments, and it combines the style of a military march with elements of neoclassical-dark wave. Moving on to the rest of the album, the listener will come across violent, warlike Black Metal, with heavy riffs, other times rhythmic, other times Thrash, other times fast, but always with industrial aesthetics to be distinguished in the background. The tracks put out very intense feelings and combined with the ambient compositions they offer to the listener intense images of war and different feelings depending on the part. The instruments are flawlessly played and they deliver the tracks with accuracy but at the same time with the passion and the intensity that they need. The production is bass and it delivers a controlled dirty sound. The mixture is balanced highlighting the bass sound, it delivers a quite massive and full sound. The lyrics are written in English and they are not contained in the cd.

Perunwit present five ambient compositions which are very atmospheric, they put out a lot of images and combined with the material of Raus! they offer a complete experience. Their material is not warlike. It presents cruel, dark images of destruction, images that a war has left behind. With drums which remind of tribal drumming from Africa, with weird acoustic string instruments and dark misty wind instruments, they build a very real scenery which drags into the story that it narrates, also the listener that is not familiar with ambient. The instruments, here too, are played flawlessly, with the ruling ones to be the wind instruments. Here too, the production puts out a more bass and dark sound. The mixture is very good as the listener can listen to the slightest detail.

To sum up, I believe that Under the Sign of the Black Mark is a very good split album. The material of Raus! fits flawlessly to the material of Perunwit, offering a continuity and the feeling of integration. For sure, the material of Raus! is more suitable for a Black Metal fan but I think that the two bands together offer a complete, concept album. This is not for every listener but it is very interesting so if you are open to different sounds it worth to give it a chance.