Graveland "In The Glare Of Burning Churches" CD Slipcase

Re-release of the "In the Glare of Burning Churches" and "Epilogue" demo-tapes remastered plus four tracks of an unreleased rehearsal from 1993. Comes in a slipcase with a 20-page booklet with lyrics, rare photos, liner notes and interview. Also includes an extra booklet with original art.
This version of the album contains the alternate demo versions of the songs, originally presented as bonus tracks on the No Colours "Epilogue" CD.

Graveland's In the Glare of Burning Churches may be short, but it is most definitely a masterpiece. What makes it so good is its truly hateful, evil sound that is quite hard to match.
Let me first start with the intro: The intro to In the Glare of Burning Churches, simply titled "Intro" is just weird. I actually like it, but it is nonetheless all too easy to laugh it, with the sound of burning churches, screams, and light Pagan folk music. After this, the album becomes seemingly dead serious and angry. The title track erupts fiercely with a storm of fuzzy, heavily distorted guitars playing evil as Hell riffing. This is pretty much the formula for the rest of the release.
Graveland show great musicianship on In the Glare of Burning Churches. Both the songwriting and the actual technical ability are great. The composition is brilliant here, and some truly evil riffs are on this E.P. The drummer, Capricornus, is definitely the most technically skilled member of the band here, he plays some intense blast beats, and adds some pretty interesting fills. His approach is nice, as it does not center entirely around blastbeats. Rather, he adds some patterns that would be considered quite unconventional for black metal. This especially shows in the heavy, guitar and drum based "breakdown" in the middle of "The Night of the Fullmoon". The riff writing on here is great, and eerie keyboards come in and out, complimenting the riffing very well.
My favorite thing about In the Glare of Burning Churches is certainly the combined tone of both the guitar and the bass. The guitar tone is a quite thin, buzzsaw style guitar tone, that could be considered "Euronymous's guitar tone on steroids", and the bass is low and grinding, acting as sort of a "thickened" for the guitar tone, preventing this from sounding thin. Actually, this is one of the heaviest black metal albums I have heard (again, listen to "The Night of the Fullmoon".
I have nothing bad whatsoever to say about In the Glare of Burning Churches. It is a perfect record.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...