Liste der Bands Black Metal Gorgoroth (NOR) Under the Sign of Hell

Oh, where do I begin with this album?

“Under the Sign of Hell” is Gorgoroth’s third offering, and though it brings several incredible songs, it also brings forth a flawed album that seems to resolve its issues as the album progresses. This would be one of the last albums with Grim (Erik Brødreskift) before his suicide in 1999.
Musically, this album was fantastic. While not as melodic as the previous release, it still had solid compositions, and with Pest on the mic, the vocals were both throat-shredding and nearly perfect in the few clean vocals, mainly on the song “Profetens åpenbaring” (Revelations of the Prophet). Infernus again shows his talents with the guitars, and performed the bass guitar on all tracks, save for the first track (performed by Ares).
Here is where I will likely get heat from other fans of this album: the production. “Revelation of Doom” starts off with the drums not only overpowering everything, but with a sound that I can only imagine inspired Lars for the making of “St. Anger”. I know that Black Metal has a habit of keeping the sound raw, but there is a fine line between raw and crap. That line was crossed with the opening track. “Krig” was marginally better, as it was more balanced. The drum sound was still tinny and horrible. By the time we get to “Funeral Procession”, the balanced mix that I praised in the previous albums has returned, and the rest of the album shines in its glorious blasphemy.
Aside from the first two tracks (and “Postludium”), this was another solid offering, and showed that Gorgoroth was far from done in its war against the light.

…however, the next album would make us wonder what they were thinking.

I finally managed to pick myself up a Gorgoroth album recently, after being only able to listen to a promo version of their last release, Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam. I went for Under the Sign of Hell, their 1997 tour de force featuring the first full vocal performance of then vocalist Pest. ...Hell is a icy cold blast of grim, Norwegian black metal, drenched in that unmistakable northern atmosphere that so many black metal albums from such luminaries possess. It's an intense album, with a tracklist that includes some of the more cherished Gorgoroth tracks. Their name, incidentally, comes from a dead plateau of evil from Mordor in Lord of the Rings, and you can just imagine this blast flowing over a desolate and melancholic place. The mix is powerful and earthy but only adds to the rough ferocity of tracks like Profetens Åpenbaring and Revelation of Doom. Pest's vocal performance is strong and raw, his vocals tearing out over the thunder of Infernus' riffs, although it would not match current vocalist Gaahl for pure vehemence and malevolence on later albums. A fantastic black metal blast, which would stand tall over its successors Destroyer and Twilight of the Idols and probably only be better by the devastating explosion of hate-fuelled metal found on Ad Majorem..., if you love your black metal, you should already own this. If you wanna get into it, there are certainly worse places to start. A milestone for one band still keeping the controversy in black metal. Blast on.