Behexen/Satanic Warmaster split CD

Right on the heels of Behexen's "My Soul for His Glory" full-length, and the third consecutive split release from Satanic Warmaster, comes this compact split CD from Hammer of Hate, offering up two tracks apiece from each of these Finnish black metal acts. Behexen starts things off with about 11 minutes of material that sounds quite similar to that of their last album in terms of boasting an excellently crisp recording with a solid bass presence and natural sounding percussion. The riffing arguably touches upon even more melody, which will probably further frustrate those who peculiarly complained about the approach taken on "My Soul for His Glory", but I must admit that I find their current delivery to be absolutely awesome on every level. There's no lack of aggression whatsoever, and the crawling dissonance and melody are integrated perfectly with surging midpaced rhythms and plenty of the genre's staple tremolo picking runs, etc. Not to mention the fact that the songwriting's highly effective and creates a great atmosphere. Good stuff. I had never heard Satanic Warmaster prior to this, but apparently the band is (at least for the moment) handled solely by an individual "named" Satanic Tyrant Werewolf, who has amassed a rather sizeable discography over the last nine years. As expected by the bluntness of the band name, opening track "Where Eternity Awaits" is a pretty straightforward attack of raw, blasting black metal with few surprises—though there are a couple of unexpected keyboard appearances that are actually tolerable in their equally raw tonality. The second track is an acoustic rendition of "The Burning Eyes of the Werewolf", which appeared in its original form on the band's first full-length back in 2001. Obviously I've never heard the original recording, but oddly enough it would seem that this edition is probably about the same, just replacing the guitars with acoustics. A little strange, and probably less than necessary, but... certainly not bad. Behexen definitely creates the bulk of the impact on this split as a result, however.

Behexen "Mouth of Leviathan" (excerpt)
Satanic Warmaster "Where Eternity Awaits" (excerpt)

In addition to the CD (and I believe there's vinyl out there somewhere as well), this one's distributed digitally through MetalHit.com for just under $4, so if you're into that angle you should be able to find the tracks at most such outlets...

Get It

MetalHit.com (mp3)
Amazon.com (mp3)
iTunes (mp3)
The End Records (CD)
Enucleation Records (CD)