Full – Length (Unholy Records, 2004)
Line – up (2000): Wolot – vocals;
Antesser – guitars;
Morok – bass;
Antiy – drums.
Location: Izhevsk , Udmurtia (Russia
Better song of the album:
“Hammer of the War”.
Better feature of the production:
the inventiveness.
Cover Design: Mrachniy
Note:
“Attack to Hate” is a very strange title. According to Metal – Archives, it should be “Attack OF Hate”. The fact is that the album was originally released in Russian, so the actual title should be a misprint.
I bought this tape 2 – 3 years ago and I’m listening it after a long time. I must say I’m enjoying a lot to listen the black metal assault of this Russian band, also because they have some features a bit strange for a old – school act like this. But Vedmak don’t publish something since 2008, when they released two splits and only the second one had a new song. Okay, it’s Underground attitude, but now it’s time to spit out fresh stuff. For now, fuck all these considerations and let’s go to analyse this debut album.
I have the 2008 version of “Attack of Hate” reissued by the brazilian labels Nuktemeron Productions and Impaled Records. For this, the tracklist contains the 2002 demo sessions (last 4 songs), that shows the excellent band musical progression in only 2 years.
The “Attack of Hate” side presents a gloom black metal with a good number of tempo shifts ranging from slow to unbridled tupa – tupas (unlike the demo, the real blast – beats are almost absent). These ones are particularly striking, especially during the fast and brutal restarts. This kind of moments is balanced with the melanchonic/doomish passages that are presents here and there in the album. Hence, the band is very good to alternate various moods surprising very often the listener, not forgetting the dynamic drumwork, able to emphasize the performance of the other instruments also through punctual variations.
I appreciate very much a feature of the album: its chaotic mood. By the way, songs like the titletrack have a sudden “conclusion” that will catch you, and the same I can say about some devastating accelerations or the last seconds of “Cool Ash”, where everything seems to fall apart. The chaos is a feature that should have any black metal production, as teached by Darkthrone. In brief, the songs structure strikes, also when the band prefers to be obsessive.
But there’s more here. In fact, I must mention the good collaboration between the musicians. In this case, “Hammer of the War” is an exemplar track, considering the brilliant melodic bass lines in this song. Besides, the soloist guitar sometimes intervenes to give depth to the music, even if there aren’t real solos.
Anyway, “Hammer of the War” is also the more complex song of this production, because, first off, its structure is unforeseeable enough and, secondly, it represent THE music of Vedmak on its whole. The introduction is mad and hysterical, some sections are hypnotic and gloomish and the tempo is sometimes groovy at a contagious level. In the future band productions it would be interesting develop, in a better way, the odd solutions of “Hammer of the War”.
The vocals spewed by Wolot are instinctive and intense, using an hysterical screaming. Also if I must say that, in the album, there are sometimes long moments without voice that reduces a bit the music impact, and this is a sin, considering the expressivity of the singer. Besides, the vocals, when they are, influences the production, burying thoughtlessly the other instruments. But this flaw isn’t so important, also because the production is very good, it gives to all the musicians the right visibility losing nothing in crudeness (for example, the drum sound is very fuckin’ true and alive).
Instead, the 2002 demo sessions contains a black metal a little different. Compared with “Attack of Hate” side, the demo sessions shows a more Norwegian sound, consequently it is very cold and simple, while the production is just more raw (a curiosity: almost each song concludes with an hallucinating feedback).
To sum it up, I prefer largely the younger stuff, where the band plays spitting a good inventiveness and brutality combined with a gloom and chaotic atmosphere and some memorable riffs. But the acoustic parts are questionable because, for example, the intro of “Attack of Hate” is poor and, above all, it contains too many pauses. In any case, these ones are only useless details, the band deserves a lot, so buy this tape or PERISH IN FLAMES… hoping that the band records something new... I’ll repeat this ‘til exhaustion!
Rating: 76
Flavio “Claustrofobia” Adducci
Tracklist:
1 – Keepers to Eternity and Death/ 2 – Izgoy/ 3 – Hammer of the War/ 4 – Blood Rain (atmospheric instrumental)/ 5 – Attack of Hate/ 6 – Cool Ash/ 7 – Images to Deaths/ 8 – Blackening Abyss/ 8 – Refuge Dark Essence/ 10 – Lie
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