Xasthur - A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (Reissue)

\r\nI believe that Xasthur is one of those bands that either you will love them blindly or you will hate them for life! Well, I suppose I am somewhere in between and the reason is that their Burzum-esque atmosphere gives many points to my sympathy for them but their less competent and ultra-atmospheric approach plus the fact that I was always thought that they were extremely overrated never really got me into crossing that line of neutralism to the area of their devoted fanbase. Although the strange thing is that lately there is this increasing popularity of the band’s name in the underground. \r\n

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\r\nBut to put things right for those who are not familiar with the band or its course so far, Xasthur formed in December of 1995 in United States by the only real and remaining member Malefic (Scott Conner, who has worked with Sunn O)) and Nachtmystium) and after some rehearsal tapes, a split MCD with Orosius and the EP "A Darkened Winter" in 2001, Malefic decided to shrink Xasthur into a one man musical vehicle. Soon after though, the demo , "A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors" was released through Makahru under it’s sub-label Profane Productions (limited to 150 copies) on September 11th, 2001 and until now is has been re-issued three times, and this time it is realesed by Hydra Head Records in a 2 CD set including the 2001 3-track "A Darkened Winter" promo plus 3 more additional rare recordings. The bad news is that in my hands I have only the first disc so my review will stick to it although I don’t really understand why the second disc was cut out from the promotional material not that this is that important anyway!\r\n

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\r\nAdvancing to the album "A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors" is the beginning of the band as we know it in now days referred as the most evil, depressive, cold, and cult band in existence with their isolated ambient, ’suicidal’ black metal usually under a rough production and based mostly on a ultra-fuzz wall of guitar distortion and eerie keyboards fasten together by painful vocals full of hatred and misanthropic scorn for humankind and minimalist programmed drumming. If I must give a more specific description of their sound Xasthur, basically they are a genetic union between Burzum’s inhuman blackness and Nortt’s funereal bleakness. There are also two covers in this album, Burzum’s "Black Spell Of Destruction" and Mütiilation’s "Eternal Empire Of Majesty Death" while the title track later was also appeared in the albums "Nocturnal Poisoning" and "To Violate The Oblivious" although with a different structure.\r\n

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\r\nOverall, you will not like this album if you are not a fan of melodic and atmospheric black metal and even if you do, you are still may find it extremely difficult to digest due to its crude recording and underground sounding stuff, with devoid of any production qualities. Finally the biggest part of the music is instrumental with the unique, over-distorted and tortured screams of Malefic being either absent or pushed back sometimes behind the music. In my opinion this album is the most guitar oriented album of Xasthur so it is a good chance to get to know them when they were more destructive and terrifying.\r\n

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\r\nVaso Prassa \r\n

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