Satanic Warmaster – Nachzehrer

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Most one-man black metal bands are plagued by terrible production, indistinguishable songs, and questionable lyrical ideology. Satanic Tyrant Werewolf, the sole member of Finland’s Satanic Warmaster takes these tropes and makes them his strengths. Nachzehrer is his first full-length album since 2005′s acclaimed Carelian Satanist Madness, and to say that expectations for the disc were high would be a severe understatement. Fortunately, the record is everything fans have come to expect from the band. It’s eight gloriously unpolished songs recalling the best moments of early Burzum and Darkthrone, all of which excepting the ambient intro and spoken-word-and-keyboards closer Utug-Hul are carried by raw, frozen riffs and choruses as catchy as any black metal band this side of Immortal can manage. On Satan’s Werewolf and Warmaster Returns especially, Satanic Tyrant Werewolf seems bent on earning the most unlikely singalong bits in metal history, a goal undoubtedly influenced by his recent history fronting Finnish hard rockers Armour. In that band as well as this, the multi-instrumentalist is cognizant of the importance of image in metal. He calls himself Satanic Tyrant Werewolf and includes pictures of himself in corpse paint with his album in lieu of a proper press release, for Christ’s sake. He doesn’t do it because he takes himself too seriously like Dimmu Borgir or Behemoth might. He’s fully aware of the shlock, and he uses it as a vehicle for getting some of the best raw black metal of the last decade out to the masses. If a little tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness is the price we must pay for albums like Nachzehrer, we could do much worse.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2010, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Satanic Warmaster