Emporer are one of the most revered names in Black Metal and to some degree Metal in general. Emporer Wrath of the Tyrant is their first full length release and is a much rawer version of a band that would shape the direction and influence countless bands that followed it. The songs were recorded in various sessions from 1992 and released as demos, then re-mastered by Wild Rags records for a release as an album. There’s a few versions of this album available through different labels and featuring different songs as well. For the purposes of this review I’ve reviewed the 1992 release.
When it comes to bands releasing albums that might be considered a bit rough on the production side, I’m generally pretty forgiving. There is a haze of distortion that clouds the whole album. If you didn’t know better you’d swear you’d have blown your speaker. It’s a shame too as the music is really good on this. You can tell the band is well ahead of their Black Metal peers at the time, and they are writing some really good songs.
Musically the band was ahead of most of its peers utilising the traditional black metal brutality and combining it with etherial sounding keyboards that saturate the back ground of the album for much of its duration. I can’t think of much in the way of Black Metal from the time that did this. Although Cradle of Filth took it to a new level not long after this. The album opens up with I am the Black Wizards which went on to become an all time fave (of mine) of fans the world over and possibly their signature song when it was re-recorded on their next album. It’s obvious the band have a great command of both Black Metal Brutality and conversely a great understanding of melody. It’s great they opened with such a great track because the horrific nature of the production could have and probably has condemned many lesser bands to obscurity.
Despite the production issues the music shines through enough that this earned them a small but devoted bunch of fans from which they could build onto their next break through album. Luckily most of the songs of this record have subsequently been re-recorded on later releases. I guess the band probably feel the same way about the production of this stuff.
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