Tracks 1 to 3 recorded March 1st and mixed March 9th at Freelation Studio in Rotterdam.
Track 4 recorded live at MvM in Schiedam, November 2nd 1996. Mixed at G's Spot Studio in Schiedam, November 5th and 6th 1996. This track is taken from the forthcoming full-length live-CD "Into Battle" licensed from Nazgul's Eyrie Productions.
Man, the wiggling guitar strings, the crash of the drums, this thing keeps on a-rockin' until the morning comes! You know, I don't even think I'm much of a Countess fan outside of this release. Their drum-machine heavy screamy, screamy black metal - while fine and dandy - never held my attention much. Orlock's vocals are, of course, fantastic but it's here where they really came alive for me.
So, what's the difference? Hitherto bedroom dwelling on this release - and perhaps only this release - Countess became a black metal high school band. Determined to rock the canteens/stages of Leiden, Orlock hired a guitarist who sounds like a slightly inept Ace Frehley and a drummer who, incredibly, sounds like Les Binks! The title-track is, of course, a celebratory anthem of black metal's rockin' roots at a time when the genre was fast moving away from them. Its main riff actually does sound like something the MC5 would play and, musically, well, you know the devil always had the best tunes, right? Orlock's howling is just so effective; he veers between goofy ('it made him smile!') and malevolent to brilliant effect. It's like Alice Cooper as a black metal vocalist. The main riff, too, is noteworthy in its goofy brilliance; KISS and the MC5 smile down while Vim Fuego wonders whether he actually had a hand in penning it.
I think it's a genuine shame that they only did one song in this style. Even if I'm left with a "what could have been?" question dangling over my head whenever I listen to this EP the other material is style some of the strongest Countess have ever penned. 'Son of the Dragon' keeps some of the anthemic nature of the title-track and, yet, moves us back into more familiar black metal realm. I don't think there is a bad song about Vlad Țepeș - I recently learnt how to say that surname correctly, too - but this one is just stellar. Again, the rockisms of this EP rear their head slightly in the chorus, which still might have a little of that KISS "Shout it Out Loud" quality to it. Elsewhere, it rides a brilliantly twisty, turning main riff.
The sound, too, is most appropriate for the style. It sounds very big and loud; as if they were a NWOBHM act getting up on a big stage with their Marshalls cranked and just letting rip (albeit in a shaky amauterish way).
'Dokkum 747' (Don?) doesn't meet the same standard as the previous two numbers but it works well enough. Again, my impression here is that Countess' true calling was to make dunderheaded Manowar-esque black metal and not worship so heavily at the altar of Bathory (not that this is a bad thing, it's just that other bands happen to be far superior at it). Still, this EP works brilliantly. Great stuff. If the keyboard-heavy, blast-beating, frilly-shirted and po-faced antics of late 90s black metal leave you cold you might well have an excellent time here.
Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
