Peaceville have been a bit quiet over the summer and are no doubt gearing up for the big winter release of the new Katatonia album. I was beginning to think that they had run out of stuff to reissue and then this most welcome surprise dropped in, an album by the infamous Bergen Norwegian black metal band Taake. Led by the enigmatic Ulvhedin Hoest (Ørjan Stedjeberg) Taake have courted plenty of controversy with live outings, the likes of which are hardly necessary to drag up again now. I have seen them twice myself, the first time finding myself considerably unimpressed and the second pretty much blown away, so I was very pleased to get this, the debut album to dissect.
On CD Hoest does deal with most of the composition himself only really utilising a band behind him for live assaults. On Nattestid however he was joined by Tundra (Frostein Arctander) on bass, drums and clean vocals. Originally released on Wounded Love Records in 1999 the album whose title translates as ‘Night Sees The White Gate’ is a pretty powerful declaration of intent following on from 2 demos recorded as Taake and 2 under original name of Thule.
There are no track titles at all on the booklet and they are listed elsewhere as ‘Vid I – VII,’ a somewhat frustrating ideology that has also been employed on later albums up to last years self titled release. ‘Vid I’ blazes in with the fiery weight of hell behind it, shrill screaming vocals are at the fore, whiplashing guitars in the middle and drums thumping away in the background. There are jaunty almost medieval folk flourishes to the music and the backing clean sweeps are also excellently deployed, as is a beefy fetid death grunt half way through the track. The Grigenhallen production is not bad at all although bass tones are slightly less forthcoming in the mix, I find listening to this album a notch or 2 higher than I would normally works to great effect and hell this sort of stuff was never meant to be heard quietly anyway. An acoustic passage on ‘II’ has an air of Bathory about it, musically this strikes as proud, jubilant and perhaps a declaration to the gods. As the lyrics in the original booklet were apparently written in runes one gets the idea that this is far more a pagan treatise than a satanic one. Melody in ‘III’ is totally infectious as a guitar passage gets in your head, it’s a simple one for sure but as it recurs and you come back to the album it immediately greets like an old friend amidst the fiery blaze of the track’s mainframe.
Although the whole album is great and has really won me over it’s the last couple of numbers that created an impression. ‘VI’ has a rampant melody coursing through it and sudden savage drum rolls booming out the mix like crashes of thunder. Similarly ‘VII’ has an almost punk laden edge at start before settling down into a mid-paced groove again with a great sense of heathen sounding melody rampaging through it. The vocals throughout are excellent and Hoest really brings a deranged but characteristic edge to the album and musically this is great too. After just a few listens it is easy to see why this has quite rightfully been hailed as a classic and I am pretty embarrassed that I never picked it up the first time round. More please!
http://taake.svartekunst.no
http://www.myspace.com/taakeofficial
