IMMORTAL Pure Holocaust is the second album from these Norgwegian masters of metal. Their first album wasn’t too bad but this, their second release just blows it out of the water.
The album opens up and instantly the listener is bombarded by warp speed blast beats with the opening song “Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss”. The guitar playing has also come along a long way and as a whole the band has improved light years in the space of one album.
The break neck speed contintues into the second track but slows down the for third with “The Sun no Longer Shines” this gives the band (and the listener) a chance to breathe a little.
Immortal have been on the record as being influenced by fellow Norwegian Black Metallers Mayhem and on this you can hear the influence but I would contend Immortal are doing it here better than Mayhem were at the time and with a much higher degree of technical proficiency.
Some more songs which are a mouthful to say such as “Storming Through Red Clouds and Holocaust Winds” and “Eternal Years on the Path to the Cemetery Gates” and the band do not let up with the black metal assault provided. “As Eternity Opens” is one of my favourite tracks on the record as again is has just that little more room to breathe with nice backing towards the end of the song that brought to mind Bathory’s early attempt at keyboards. Maybe it was a homage to Quorthon? I’d like to think so.
With this record and the scene at the time the way it was, Immortal propelled themselves to the forefront of what was going on setting themselves above most of the black metal that was being produced at the time and set a huge trail of footprints to follow in.
The onlsaught continues with “Frozen By Icewinds” and here you can get the theme of this band, cold barren landscapes are brought to mind and the music complements this perfectly.
Over time there has been some conjecture about who actually played drums on this recording as their was a drummer (well, a third member anyway) featured on the cover but over time it has come to light that Abbath recorded the drums. I don’t know if the dude can actually play drums or just hit them peice by peice over seperate recording tracks in the studio but either way he’s done a great job of providing the basis of the sound.
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