This album was put together by Lost Disciple Records to help promote the American Black Metal scene and to expose the bands to the rest of the world, and to attempt to prove that the American scene is just as strong as any other scene. Like typical ‘true’ black metal, the production on most of these songs is terrible. For years I’ve tried to understand why, to be considered ‘true’, a black metal band had to record their material with the absolute worst production possible. I think I have found the answer. The answer is that the original ‘true’ band didn’t do it just as an attack against a ‘corporate’ sound, but out of necessity. The bands had spent so much money on leather, spikes, axes, swords, lederhosen, make up and hair gel that the only money that remained in their budget for the actual recording of the album was $1.83 in loose change, two buttons and some pocket lint. These are mainly typical American Dungeons & Dragons nerds wanna-be black metal musicians, and obviously the majority of their money goes towards their image; hair care products, shells for their shotguns, spandex wrestling trunks for backyard wrestling matches, cheap hookers, crack-cocaine and beer. I can’t help but laugh when I look through the CD booklet and see all of these ridiculous goofy bastards wearing their make-up and spikes. Of the thirteen bands featured on the compilation, eight of them have pictures in the booklet with the members wearing corpse paint and spikes. They’re basically a red nose away from being students at the Bozo School Of Clowning. Actually, this reminds me of a conversation the Angry Norse and myself had this morning;

Angry Norse: The only bands who ever got away with good make-up were KISS, Darkthrone and Gorgoroth Others should simply not try.
Teufel: Don’t forget Lita Ford.

I personally think bands should let their music speak for themselves. If you want to play evil black metal, go for it, just leave the 20" arm spikes to Kerry King and the make-up and fire to 50 year-old rock and rollers who were kicking ass and taking names long before the majority of you were even born. Anyway… I’m done my speech about why American black metallers are such silly bastards, it’s time to actually discuss what’s on this disc. Like any compilation there are good bands, there are bad bands, and there are bands I personally hope set themselves on fire. The majority of the bands on the compilation play incredibly bland and boring raw black metal, if I hadn’t known it was a compilation of different bands I would have assumed the same band recorded almost every song. The few bands who do stand out from the monotony are Abysmal Fall, Noctuary, Averse Sefira, Kult ov Azazel, Corvus Corax and Darkmoon. Noctuary’s "Eternity Ever Fading" is an extremely poor example of the band’s talent, as their When Fires Breed Blood CD proves that the band is much better than the typical bad production black-thrash with angry Smurf vocals song suggests. Corvus Corax play easily the longest track on the compilation, which is a very bizarre blend of melody and black metal, unfortunately it’s just not the sort of thing that can keep my attention for longer than 10 seconds, let alone 10 minutes, although is rather unique. Kult ov Azazel mixes a rather typical raw black metal assault, with a less chaotic more thrash-oriented approach, which at least shows a great deal of promise. Abysmal Fall’s track is probably my favorite on the compilation and is solid enough to keep my attention throughout the entire song. Averse Sefira certainly don’t overwhelm with technicality, however they do write a moderately interesting mid-paced track. Darkmoon is… well… Darkmoon. I’ve enjoyed their music since I first heard Vengeance For Withered Hearts in ‘97 and still enjoy their music to this day. The one thing this compilation does show there are some strong American black metal projects, and those with promise, but for every good band, there are at least a half dozen who are ridiculously annoying with their trend hopping and wanna-be evil Scandinavian raw black metal, and, to be perfectly honest, they fail horribly and do little more than make the entire American black metal movement look ridiculous, especially with their overuse of cliches, and especially the wardrobe and make-up. There is good black metal in America, just most of it isn’t found on this compilation. Written By: Teufel