Label Number: 8148-2
© 2003 Century Media
Review by Jack for Metal Reviews.com
2003 is going to be a hell of a great year. The year starts off with
Old
Man’s Child new release
In Defiance Of Existence. Then
we will have
Cradle Of Filth's new album
Damnation And A Day,
The Kovenant with
S.E.T.I. (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence),
and finally later in the year the new
Dimmu Borgir which they
have not started recording yet. Since
Emperor has laid down their weapons (I would not be surprised if they reunite someday), might we call the
remaining aforementioned bands the big four of black metal ?
Old Man’s Child mainman Galder is one strange guy. On
Old Man’s Child earlier recordings, he used to call himself
Grusom (his real name is Thomas Rune Andersen). I just want to point out that
he never recorded twice at the same location. This new album has been recorded
at Studio Fredman with producer Fredrik Nordström while
Revelations
666 – The Curse Of Damnation was recorded at Abyss Studio with superstar
producer Peter Tägtgren. Legendary Tomas Skogsberg at famous Sunlight studios
recorded and produced
Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion. Galder helped
producing
The Pagan Prosperity at Studiomega with J. Lohngrin Cremonese
and Christian Silver. Finally, their first album
Born Of The Flickering
was recorded at Studio 3 in Norway with producer Tom Sennerud.
On his side are the long time follower and founding member Jardar (not JarJar)
on lead guitar (his real name is Jon Øyvind Andersen). The guys teamed
up on all
Old Man’s Child recordings except for
Ill-Natured
Spiritual Invasion. Galder probably noticed that working with his longtime
friends had always created the best and darkest unholy visions so Jardar returned
for
Revelations 666 – The Curse Of Damnation which I consider
their best output so far. For the first time ever comes drummer Nicholas Barker who
is also Galder's bandmate in
Dimmu Borgir. Making a guest appearance
on several tracks is Gus G. from
Dream Evil who contributed
some guitar leads.
Despite what many people say and I know some of you are going to kill me on
that one, I find a lot of similarities between
Old Man’s Child
and
Dimmu Borgir musically speaking. Now that Galder has
teamed up with his bandmate Nicholas Barker the differences are even less.
I found
Old Man’s Child a bit more chaotic than
Dimmu
Borgir, although their finest symphonic black metal is as good as their
fellow compatriots. Even if it seemed nearly impossible, Galder and Jardar have
improved the band’s unique style of sharp thrash metal riffs and majestic
black metal melodies, although I find their previous album
Revelations 666
– The Curse Of Damnation thicker probably because I have been listening
to it for the last three years. Differences between the two bands are that
Old
Man's Child do not use any clean vocals, nor do they use a real philarmonic
orchestra for the Ochestral parts.
tags: old mans child, in defiance of existence, 2003, flac,
