"Originators Of The Northern Darkness"

It had been announced ages ago, and here comes finally this tribute to the cult b and Mayhem! Fantastic tracks, covered by the very best extreme metal bands of today , that should normally kick some ass. But if you have some memory, the configuration was exactly the same with the tribute to Darkthrone, which was all in all very average, because the original spirit had not been respected. By luck here, all the bands (except Vader, whose version of 'Freezing Moon' has nothing to do here) cover Mayhem with an old school sound, and change their own style. Immortal's Abbath is for example way closer to Attila than to his normal voice on 'From The Dark Past'. Else, mostly old tracks are covered, and Seth is the only band who dared to cover more recent Mayhem stuff, with the very good 'Into Thy Labyrinth'. More generally, we have the best tracks with the very cool 'De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' from Limbonic Art, and the unreleased song 'Ghoul' from Carpathian Forest. A really good tribute album, for a band that deserved it!

T. Bonnicel
(this review was taken from EXTREME MUSIC NEWS http://nestor.minsk.by/emn/)