Taake: Noreg Vrapen

Taake is a hard working Norwegian act founded by Hoest back in 1993.Wheras many an extreme band release few albums, Taake has under its belt numerous demos, EPs, splits and full lengths since their creation. Their debut, Nattestid Ser Porten Vid , came out in 1999. Noreg Vrapen, is the fifth full length; a solo album from creator Hoest. In the same year, he also released an EP (Kveld) and appeared on a split called Swine of Hades; not a lazy composer as you can see.

Hoest is not only the driving force behind Taake, he is also the only one involved in this album. I was a bit taken by surprise with this release. I mean, I remember having reviewed some earlier work and liked it, being Norwegian black metal and all, but was not expecting some of the elements he threw in for us. The backbone of this music is, naturally, your typical distorted guitars, tremolo picking, blast beats and raspy vocals. Then, you have a ghostly side to his voice, variation in the tempos, usually in the moderate range and those juicy/ crushing power riffs. Already, it makes a nice touch in the overall sound. Add to this musical breaks, guitar solos and even some doomish riffing and you start to feel that something is different about this music. This is great news, since those twists and turns are occurring throughout the album, not just on a couple tracks. For me , Noregs Vrapen , really got interesting from track 4, "Du ville ville Vestland" onwards. There I had the pleasure to hear many tasty parts made of clean arpeggios, cool riffs and solos, samplings, choirs, wicked vocals. My overall favorite composition sits at position # 5 and is called "Myr". This songs started out as a fast number, then calming with distorted lead and arpeggios, continuing with female spoken words, ghostly rasps, screams and a guitar solo. Now, what a hellish surprise was it for me to hear a nice banjo running like a fast train in all of this! This is brilliant, and believe it or not, this mixture of instruments apparently unrelated, worked out very well, to my amazement and pleasure! This very cool number ends with a slow and crushing style. The closing track is of epic dimension. Not only is it clocking I at 10 minutes plus, but the succession of tempos and mood come up to more distorted arpeggios, ambience provided by samplings and/or keyboards and spoken words.

As you can see, originality is always welcome in extreme music and Norwegian black metal is well and still alive.

Track listing:
1. Fra vadested til vaandesmed
2. Orkan
3. Nordbundet
4. Du ville ville Vestland
5. Myr
6. Helvetesmakt
7. Dei vil alltid klaga og kyta

Added: January 23rd 2012
Reviewer: Denis Brunelle
Score:
Related Link: More Information
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Language: english

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