It would’ve have been easier if I had done my Evilfeast reviews in a chronological order. However, as I got this demo only after having acquired “Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest” and “Funeral Sorcery”, all of you had to wait until now for a review of it. The only conclusion I can draw after having listened to this is that a) it’s good stuff and b) it’s in the same vein as “Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest” and “Funeral Sorcery”. Production wise a bit rawer indeed, yet the sound isn’t much worse than on the two successive releases. 

“Thy Abhorrent Emerging” contains cold and raw black metal in the Nordic vein with synths, which makes me think of wintry landscapes and starlit skies. Evilfeast’s music is also dark and makes me feel some real early-to-mid-90s nostalgia at times, which is great. The tracks are very long, with even the shortest one stretching past eight minutes, but I don’t get bored at all. The music is quite much like that of old Gehenna (especially “Seen Through the Veils of Darkness”), a bit simpler though and some parts sound a bit like Xasthur. The use of synths is Evilfeast’s strength. They do not only provide an atmospheric background for the black metal parts but there are also some purely ambient parts (which remind me of some of Vinterriket’s ambient stuff), e.g. on “Entering the Forest of Old Wisdom”. I also have to mention the excellent freezing synths during the blast parts of “Inner Dark Spheres” - they gave me goose bumps. Unlike on the two successive releases, the vocals are not distorted on this demo. Instead the vocals are a bit dry and have some reverb to them as well. 

I’m not entirely sure whether GrimSpirit used a drum machine or not on “Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest” and “Funeral Sorcery”, but on this demo he definitely uses one. It sounds a bit dry and makes the blast parts sound somewhat monotonous but that’s about the only negative thing I have to say about this demo. “Thy Abhorrent Emerging” is proof that Evilfeast had something good going on already on the demo stage. By the way, also this band seems to belong to the anti-Behemoth fraction of the Polish underground scene. On the cover of the demo there is a picture of Nergal’s face inside a circle with a line crossing the circle (like a traffic sign) plus the statement “Anti-Trend”.

I found this gem while browsing the internet. I saw the cover and the album title, thought that it must be something special, as the title is very inspirative. And I thought right, although I was yet unprepared for what was to come. Labelled as atmospheric black metal, I expected some slow, droning and lukewarm hymns of dullness drenched in random noises and electronic ''embellishments'', as many (pseudo)atmospheric bands write. But, fortunately, I was wrong.

This band is all about atmosphere. The production is raw, but this adds to the album's numerous strong points. The guitars are clean and have a thick, full and rich sound; they are clean, unlike other raw albums, the reverb they have brings to the listeners' ears consonant, repetitive, haunting, almost trance-inducing beautiful and highly evocative riffs that create a ''wall of sound'', while keys support the riffs and also play many leading lush and eerie melodies, but they never smother the guitar. As for the drums, it seems it's a drum machine, but the rhythm is varied within each song, so the music is not one-dimensional. They are pretty low in the mix, so that more than often they resound like distant heartbeats, especially cymbals, albeit bass drums are thundering throughout. Vocals sound genuinely evil. They are not very varied, but they are performed with heartfelt conviction, being of the rasping variety, similar to Legion's vocal work. They have also an echoing effect added to them, as everything here has, purveying the grim atmosphere. They are not high in the mix, but rather seem to blend with the instruments, sounding like an additional instrument, while remaining audible. Of special mention are the beautiful and poetic lyrics. They possess a dark and menacing imagery, while retaining poetic beauty, being somewhat hermetic and highly metaphorical, with a mystic and a pagan undertone, evoking man's bounds with nature. 

All songs are lengthy, the whole album having a duration of an hour, roughly, but there is no filler and not a single momoent of dullness, as it's very easy to immerse oneself into the music. There are six songs and three instrumental synth pieces: an intro, an interlude and an outro. All these are about three minutes of length. Unlike other such pieces that end being skipped, these are very good. A friend not into metal told me he felt unease while they played, so they are truly full of dread; while they give me goose bumps. The intro is especially haunting. It is eerie and brings haunting fullmoon nights to mind. The interlude is melancholic and full of longing. 

The whole atmosphere and ambience of this album is a mystic experience, like really walking in a forest by a fullmoon night in winter; a truly rewarding and enthralling listen, best experienced when listening to it with headphones, as to fully catch every subtlety. I highly recommend this album and Evilfeast in general to every dark soul and urge everyone who did not discover Evilfeast to immerse himself into this true piece of art.

Poland has many excellent bands and Evilfeast is one more addition to that bunch. The cover picture of this CD tells you exactly what the music will sound like: dark atmospheric black metal with strong sombre undercurrents. Bands that come to my mind when listening are old Gehenna, Kataxu and even Xasthur occasionally, however, Evilfeast does not copy any of these bands. Despite hailing from Poland, Evilfeast’s style is more Nordic than the traditional Polish one (old Graveland, Infernum, old Behemoth etc.). 

The guitars are raw yet powerful and create a very wintry feeling to the music. The production manages to create quite a “big” sound despite not being a polished, professional one. A thing that could be better is the drum sound; here the drums thud along in a pretty unclear way. The vocals are distorted in order to give them a grimmer touch. Feel wise Evilfeast draws from early to mid 90s black metal and manages to do “cliché” titles like “Ode to a Rising Fullmoon”, “Thy Woods are Sacred” and “Towards the Funeral Winternight Landscape” justice. 

The synths are used exceptionally well throughout “Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest”, adding a truly floating and dim atmosphere to the songs. For example, the synth intro “Ode to a Rising Fullmoon” conveys precisely the chilling and somber feeling that black metal synth intros used to convey back in the day. Midway through the CD there’s another great synth track called “Solitude Apotheosis” which is full of sadness and longing. The third synth track, “Desolate Fields Left”, ends the CD in an appropriate way. To sum it up, “Mysteries of the Nocturnal Forest” lives up to its name. It’s like walking in a misty winter forest at night led only by the light of the fullmoon.

Even before I knew where Evilfeast was from I guessed somewhere like Poland as Evilfeast possess that dark almost folk like sound that Polish black metal is so well known for. The band sound very similar to Kataxu but I wouldn’t quite put them in the same league as them. The production has that same airy feel and the vocals have that airiness that Kataxu and Leviathan have. There are some truly excellent ambient passages included in the songs and the synth adds a very mystique and sad atmosphere at times. However the combination with the guitars is a little questionable at times. Other than that I haven’t got anything else negative to say about this album. On the whole it is a very decent album and an excellent debut and I can only see Evilfeast getting better.

Symphonic, majestic, regal, ancient, dark and powerful yet chaotic are words that instantly spring to mind when ever I listen to Evilfeast. Strange name I almost didn't bother checking this one man band from Poland out - how good could a black metal band called "Evilfeast" really be? Very good as it happens, sumblime - the epitome of all I long for in my never ending quest for new black metal delights and haunting soundscapes.
If you have a short attention span or are looking for more of a quick fix in your music choices you'd best look elsewhere because Grimspirit has a penchant for creating long multi-layered compositions. The shortest track on Funeral Sorcery is a shade under seven minutes, the longest a whopping thirteen minutes and thirty seven seconds!
There's so much going on it's like being caught between the most furious outbursts of Paysage d'Hiver together with one of Forest Silence's uniquely atmospheric keyboard projects.
I mentioned atmosphere above and this release is dripping with it, sludgy down tuned guitar melodies with bombastic blast beats from drumming that could herald the apocalypse. Cymbals add to the cacophony.

Flames fluttering, water dripping and a mans detached other wordly mutterings can be heard in brief periods of respite before this maelstrom rumbles on. Hmm definition of maelstrom:

1. A violent or turbulent situation: caught in the maelstrom of war.
2. A whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence.

Something's missing...

1. A violent or turbulent situation: caught in the maelstrom of war.
2. A whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence.
3. A sonic soundscape by Polish augurer Grimspirit.

As I sit here transfixed it wouldn't be hard to imagine something malevolent being summoned from some portal mankind really doesn't want to open, for all his inquisitiveness and folly to meddle in affairs other than his own. I really don't think we're ready to witness Grimspirits monster ID. Dr. Morbius would be horrified though more than a little proud of his progeny I would imagine.

The vocals on Funeral Sorcery are mainly cold and harsh with occasional venomous shouts and shrieks. The whole recording sounds like it was mixed in some under ground cavern, some catherdral sized cavern.
Halfway through the closing track - Im Schatten der Majestät des Eistodes (In the shadow of the majesty of Eistodes) bird song can be heard together with the piercing cry of an eagle, running water presumably from a stream, and melodic keyboards play over an almost distant sounding whispering. The keyboards rise majestically and we can hear the wind as if from inside a tunnel, or entrance. The melody softly fades before those dissonant guitars return and invade our consciousness, unrelenting in their demand to usurp all else, only the dirge like drums and Grimspirits proclamations are allowed to be heard.

The almost hour of play time is over, chanting choral voices herald the end together with those mournful church bells ringing through a "Pea-souper" of fog that has descended outside without my even realising. It has turned cold and I can see my breath. I must light a fire, as I catch sight of my reflection my palour has changed, dark eyes stare emotionally back in a face drained of colour. Looking closer the movements no longer mimic my own and a bony hand raises, unfurling fingers more like claws... beckoning. 

Beckoning me.

Isenheimen/Abyss Calls is the collaboration between Polish black metal band Evilfeast and Hungarian ambient black band Marblebog. This split comprises seven "songs", the first three of which are performed by Grimspirit (Evilfeast), totaling just over twenty-eight minutes while Marblebog`s "half" (consisting of sole member Gábor Varga) clocks in at over twenty-five minutes.

I put off purchasing this split for a good few years, dismissing it after reading a few reviews that claimed it to be an effort that was slightly underwhelming. Finally after wanting to own as much output as possible by Grimspirit (Wolves of Hyperborean Frost EP is limited to a mere fifty copies), I added it to my collection. I should add I`d not heard any work by Gábor Varga before this, and in all honesty I wasn`t expecting much, though one thing I`ve learned is that you should never "judge a book by its cover" so after many listens now I gaze out through the rivulets of rain coursing down my window and tentatively pen my review of this almost hour long musical journey that I think is an apt description.

The EP starts with Evilfeast`s Dawn of Winter, ethereal keyboards and gentle wind effects that lull the listener as a solitary wolf can be heard somewhere far off. It is a slow-paced instrumental track that's quite hypnotic, like you`d expect from the ambient side of Paysage d`Hiver or something by the German band Coldworld, almost a serenade expressing reverence and instilling calm before Grimspirit turns on his more trademark distinctive pummeling onslaught. Fast machine gun-like drums and distorted whiny guitars (an impenetrable wall of sound) only pause now and then for brief quieter interludes. Grimspirit`s voice can be heard speaking in the background, garbled and guttural. Keyboards add an almost film noir-like layer, soaring and echoing like we`re in some vast hall with high vaulted ceilings.

My Journey Into Cold Infinity is Evilfeast`s finale and each time I hear it after the more abrasive Isenheimen I`m overcome with a sense of wonder and timelessness. I imagine traveling amongst fields of stars, ancient and dazzling in their radiant majesty. Grimspirit`s voice can be heard talking; I try repeatedly to catch what he is saying but his words are obscured and softly spoken. I`m not worried about my inability to decipher his mind-transmission though as I know my consciousness has stored it subliminally and in my dreams I will understand long forgotten secrets. 

Hív A Mélység (Abyss Calls) is track four and we`ve reached the start of Marblebog. Like Dawn Of Winter, it is also deeply hypnotic and an instrumental, though this time an echoed and surreal mouth harp dominates. Quest is track five and towers majestically with a driving rhythm. The vocal shrieks remind me of Masanori from the Japanese band Gnome. At first I thought them to be ugly and out of place against such passionately soaring music, like an orc had somehow crashed into the recording studio and wanted to contribute to something beyond its understanding, shrieking almost in bewilderment and only able to guess at a beauty it was never meant to have feelings for, but then I realized the sharp contrast between the vocalizations and the music was perfect. The production on Marblebog`s half of the split is much rawer and louder, akin to a Darkthone recording...almost.

Silencedawn - wow! Just wow is the simple way I can best describe my feelings toward this simple repetitious instrumental. I can imagine some hero like Siegfried (apt as the name translates to "victory peace") on his journey, tragic yet always so brave and ready to meet his fate. The melody is mainly single string plucking that's unhurried, occasionally changing pitch, and very arresting. I`m a sucker for the reflective and this is one of the most profound instrumentals I`ve heard. A fitting outro to a joint collaboration between two dark masters of their art.

If both Evilfeast and Marblebog constructed a vehicle to take the listener on his or her final journey toward the river Styx and beyond, I feel Evilfeast`s would be a darkly tinted and foreboding, albeit luxurious and stretched limousine while Marblebog`s would be an old dark coach pulled by a team of six strong jet black horses with nostrils flaring wildly as they thunder through a never ending night.

Both more than capable of reaching their destination.

It's always a good sign for me when a black metal album begins with a beautiful, spacey ambient piece before it actually dives into the riffs. Evilfeast's Lost Horizons of Wisdom falls into this niche of spacey atmospheric black metal that I enjoy and is easily one of the best albums in that niche that I've found in a long time. The band has released other albums, but even they don't strike me as strongly as Lost Horizons of Wisdom, mainly because I prefer this album's structure: 5 ten+ minute long tracks rather than 8 or 9 shorter ones including interludes.

The riffs themselves sound like a mix of Darkspace and Lunar Aurora during the faster parts, but it's not them alone that make the album. There's ambient bits thrown in throughout the album, not constantly, but just in the right places. The guitars may sound a little dry, but the ambiance in the right places gives them a booster shot to help them forward through each of these long songs.

When the ambiance plays by itself though it sounds the most mystical. The beginning of "Algol's Northern Lights and the break in "Grimspirit the Forest Wanderer" are the best examples of this especially the former as it's the intro to the album. The only time the ambiance gets carried away is in "My Tower Among the Timeless Mountains" because it goes on for way too long. It's a twenty minute long song, but it could have been cut a good five and a half minutes shorter because that's how long this intro is.

The best parts of the album though are when the metal instruments and the ambiance play together. And while there's plenty of that going on here, some of them are extremely memorable; in particular, the starry sounding part starting at the 6:10 mark of "Grimspirit...", the slower Elffor-esque parts after the intro on "Cold Chains of Despondency", and the outro of the same song which reuses the ambiance used in the intro. Hell even the intro to "Algol's Northern Lights" sounds great when it turns up again near the end of the title track when it's played with the rest of the instruments.

Lost Horizons of Wisdom is a great album for fans of spacey sounding black metal. It's great for fans of Kataxu, Lunar Aurora, Vinterriket and the like. Despite it being longer than Evilfeast's other three full-lengths and therefore may be a tougher nut to crack, when you do crack it it's well worth it.

Well, here’s another Evilfeast album and GrimSprit stays true to his style. “Lost Horizons of Wisdom” contains good and solid cold atmospheric black metal in the early 90s Nordic vein with a touch of ambient. The bands I’m reminded most about are Burzum and early Gehenna. Some of the riffs are clearly Burzum influenced, while the interaction between the guitars and the synths often reminds me of Gehenna. 

All the songs are long and the riffing is somewhat repetitive, not quite as simple in structure as e.g. Burzum’s “HLTO” though. If you like this type of song writing, “LHOW” is strongly recommended, as the length of the tracks allows the listener to make his or her own “journey to the stars” while listening. I’ve previously mentioned Xasthur as a reference in my Evilfeast reviews but this time I don’t really get any such vibes from the music. 

The production is a touch grimmer than on previous Evilfeast releases, although the general sound picture has remained the same as before. The guitars are bit more distorted and have less low end than before and the production is a bit more dissonant overall than previously. This creates a hazy feeling to the album, which complements the artwork. Compared to older Evilfeast releases, the synths have become colder and more penetrating. They often make the music sound quite massive, one good example of this is the beginning of “Cages of Cold Despondency”. Another good example of this is the first part of the title track, which is slow, emotional and very sorrowful. I would have loved it if the whole track had been like this but it does speed up later on. The blasting kills some of the atmosphere that has been built up by the first part of the track, but it’s for sure still a great song with some very Burzum inspired riffs. 

As I mentioned before, ambient is part of Evilfeast’s musical repertoire also on this album. All tracks feature floating ambient parts among the all the black metal mayhem. Take for example the first approximately five and a half minutes of “My Tower Among the Timeless Mountains”: first both synths and distorted guitars play together but the guitars stop after a while and the rest of the introductory part is sad and majestic synth music. Then at 5:40 the black metal finally kicks in and the track starts for “real”. These ambient parts remind me of Vinterriket’s ambient stuff, as they make me think of desolate moonlit wintry landscapes untouched by Man.

Some acoustic guitar is used on “Grim Spirit, the Forest Wanderer” but it’s very low in the mix and the sections containing acoustic guitar are short, so you might not notice this detail at first. The vocals are still distorted and pretty low in the mix, so they act more like an instrument and don’t dominate the sound. I like this mixing decision, as it makes the music sound well balanced. A lot of fury on this one but also some damn fine tranquil moments in the shape of the ambient parts.

It's safe to say that GrimSpirit knows exactly what he's doing. Whether it's creating beautiful, entrancing atmospheres or showcasing his simple, yet crushing writing, this polish musician has a strong grasp on the ambient/atmospheric black metal sound. While I started my fascination of Evilfeast through the 2013 EP, "Invoking the Ancient", it quickly became evident to me that I'd be blown away by the entire discography of this Polish single member musical endeavor. Evilfeast's unique sound fusing addictively cold black metal with fantastic, ethereal ambient goodness instantly has the ability to mentally transport listeners to a frozen-over mountain forest.

This 2011 release is by far the opus of the Evilfeast catalogue, highlighting the overwhelming hybrid between beauty and harsh mysticism that is ambient black metal. My first listen through this album was definitely a defining moment in how I perceive and listen to albums in this style. Instantly, the ambient intro to this sixty-eight minute masterpiece drew me in. Unlike other ambient intros to albums, this wasn't an uninspiring, unoriginal boring compilation of simple melodies layered a few times. It perfectly gave contrast between simplicity in ambient music and multilayered musicality through interesting and unconvential melodic mixes. I'd say it without a doubt set the tone for the album, and would just as perfectly set the tone for someone who has just discovered this project. 

Following the intro is over an hour of gloriously grim, unpolished, yet clean black metal with massive ambient tracks blanketing the album's entirety. Each song perfectly encapsulates the feeling of walking through misty snow-laden forests at night, rife with overgrown evergreens and gnarled fallen logs. It's got such an alpine sound, it's hard to imagine the visuals to this album anywhere but in some remote forest surrounding a thunderous peak of a icy mountain (in my opinion, at least.)

One of the more pleasing aspects of the album is the mixing, by far. It provides a really genuine, well thought-out mix that leaves no layer higher or lower sonically than it needs to be. For the genre, it has a brilliant mixture of bass, mids, and trebles, ensuring that each is featured simultaneously to draw listeners in. The themes of ever-continuing stretches of nature and overwhelming mental patches of sorrow definitely shine through in the vocal performance. The brilliantly written lyrics instantly are brought to life by the tortured, harsh, and mangled screams of GrimSpirit. Now I know at this point, it seems like I'm obsessing a bit, and I am, but to be fair, if you're even close to a fan of this somewhat esoteric genre, chances are you'll definitely agree by the album's end. 

All in all, this is one of my favorite albums, especially within the realm of black metal. Not only is this album powerful and well made, the entire discography so far is. I recommend listening to the other releases to fully comprehend this unique stylistic take on ambience in black metal. After analyzing and listening to this album and project repeatedly, it's safe to say that it's nearly a timeless masterpiece and will be followed by many great releases to come. 

[Also, I actually refrained from reviewing a specific format of this release because it sounds amazing on each format it's been released on thus far.]

Evilfeast is a one-man project created by the Polish musician GrimSpirit. Initially, the project had a different name, Darkfeast, which didn´t last more than two years. Musically speaking Evilfeast’s sound hasn´t changed too much since the early inception of the project. GrimSpirit’s passion has been, and still it is, to make black metal, always with a raw sound yet very atmospheric. The debut demo “The Abhorrent Emerging” was logically even rawer but it settled the foundations of Evifeast’s trademark sound. The band has carved a cult status among the black metal fans because of the excellent level of each of his four albums. All the albums share many common characteristics, but each one has its own distinctive touch making all of them especial. It is always a matter of discussion but Evilfeast probably reached its highest point with its third opus entitled “Lost Horizon of Wisdom”. Consisting of five long pieces, GrimSpirit created which are probably the most beautiful melodies he has ever managed to compose. Because this is something important to point out. Yes, Evilfeast has a raw, dark and aggressive sound, but GrimSpirit has the tremendous talent to mix the black metal essence with hypnotic and beateous keys, whose melodies are undoubtedly captivating. Prior to Evilfeast I had already met some bands which used to introduce nice keys, but Evilfeast goes further as the band is able to mix beauty and darkness in a unique way. It’s not my intention to tag Evilfeast as an original band because it’s not. All the ingredients in its music are classic, but the quality and the way they are composed make Evilfeast an especial band. Anyway, its not all about the keys. Many bands use them, sometimes to mask the lack of good riffs, for example. Fortunately, this is not the case. Evilfeast composes songs with good riffs, varied and well-focused. The songs are good even without keys. The compositions are varied in pace, variety and guitar work, which is something remarkable. 

So, after four awesome albums and a long wait Evilfeast finally decides to release its fifth opus. The expectation among the black metal community and especially the fans specifically interested in the atmospheric black metal subgenre was very high. Fortunately, the first listens make it clear that Evilfeast hasn´t lost its inspiration and what is also very important, all the characteristics we love from this band are still there. This is not an obstacle for GrimSpirit who introduces a few new elements to keep Evilfeast’s sound fresh and inspired. “Elegies of the Stellar Wind” is the name of the new masterpiece and if the album cover can be a good indicator of the quality of an album, this one could be the perfect example. The artwork is truly beautiful, it depicts a phantasmagorical church surrounded by a snowed and dark forest and it’s simply perfect for this band. 

As I have previously mentioned musically speaking the new album doesn´t leave behind the main characteristics which have defined Evilfeast’s previous works. The album opener “The Second Baptism…Shores in Flames” is a perfect example of it. This song has a long keyboard driven intro, solemn and with a clear medieval touch, which I must remark is one of the specific characteristics of the keys in this album. This long intro is abruptly broken by Evilfeast’s trademark dark and raw guitars, accompanied by the vicious shrieks of GrimSpirit. Though the production has been improved through the different albums the rawness is still there, which I personally find great. As it’s classic in Evilfeast the song flows naturally between the fastest sections and the slowest ones, making the song more entertaining and varied. This is especially remarkable if we compare this track to many other atmospheric black metal band´s compositions, which are usually monorithmic. The majestic keys are a constant through the whole song, enhancing the solemn atmosphere of this track. Another fine example of the aforementioned medieval-esque keys appears in the fourth track “ From the Northern Wallachian Forest... Tyranny Returns”. The whole intro makes you feel that you are trapped in a medieval castle or monastery. This is perhaps the slowest track of the album, being a mid-tempo song, which contains some of the most memorable moments of this album. In this work GrimSpirit has introduced some clean vocals which sound like a choir, though we can only listen to a single voice. They sound truly great even being recorded in a low-profile mode. This resource is generously used through the album, for example in the first two tracks, in “From The Northern…” and also in the magnificent closing track, “Inclinita Resurgit… Rebirth of My Noble Dark Kingdom”. This is a truly brilliant way to end the album, because this track sums up all the aspects which make Evilfeast great. Moreover, it is a perfect example of how this album sounds. The already mentioned clean vocals shine here more than ever and the keys are as beautiful as we could imagine when we speak about Evilfeast. It’s indeed a majestic yet diverse song, which flows easily between fast and slower sections and between beautiful and devilish parts, pure Evilfeast. 

In conclusion, Evilfeast has made a glorious comeback with “Elegies of the Stellar Windir”, bringing us another milestone in its faultless discography. It’s particularly difficult to judge if this is its best album, but without any doubt I rate it among the best ones. If this album doesn´t receive a perfect score it’s simply because the new and shortened version of “A Cenotaph Below the Cursed Moon” was, in my humble opinion, better when it originally appeared in the demo released in 2015. Apart from this tiny aspect the album is simply perfect.