Impious Havoc ‎"Dawn Of Nothing" CD

Track 8: Darkthrone cover!!  Third album of this Finish Black Metal band. No compromise!

Raw Finish Black Metal. This sounds totally inspired by early Gorgoroth and Darkthrone.

For those not in the know, Impious Havoc is a complete and absolute clone of Gorgoroth with not a trace of originality to be found anywhere in their music. Unlike most other clone bands content to replicate one particular album or era, Impious Havoc seems to actually be moving through Gorgoroth's career themselves. Earlier material is more in the vein of 'Pentagram' while this release is an obsessive cloning of 'Under The Sign Of Hell' from from slightly thrashy and unbearably grim songwriting to brackish, chaotic production. As a Gorgoroth fan, I can't say I really disapprove of a band deciding to worship one of Norway's greats, but I do wonder about what would happen if they put a tenth of the energy currently dedicated to finding out what brand of pants Hat was wearing during the debut's recording session to actually writing their own fucking riffs.
Any musical description of this is completely unnecessary if you've heard 'Under The Sign Of Hell' because this is in essence the same album. The production is ultra-dry and monochromatic and even the guitar sounds like a snare drum with its chainsaw distortion. The drums thump out a series of simple thrash beats with the occasional rickety tom fill tying lines of music together while guitars churn out vicious tremolo riffs and the occasional midpaced strum passage. The riffs sound like they were pulled out of Infernus' outlet mall for music, where all the riffs with just a little too much repetition or directionlessness end up. Admittedly, even mediocre Gorgoroth riffs are still pretty good riffs, and when stacked up against the minimalist drum performance and binary shrieks, they do tend to work really well. The end result is appropriately abrasive and nasty even if there's not even a shred of original thought to be found.
This is really the definition of the album you put on when you don't know what to listen to. It fits all situations: driving, sitting around, school, weddings, etc. Granted, this comes at the sacrifice of artistry and a real voice of its own, but clearly neither of those things were even on the fucking radar when this was written. It's very simple black metal made by people who intrinsically understand the basics of the genre and feel no need to progress beyond them. You know what? I'm really okay with that. 'Dawn Of Nothing' is well executed for what it is. Some of the riffs are memorable and you can headbang along with the perpetual thunking bass drum and rapidly turn down the volume on your stereo when the feedback comes in at the end of tracks because they didn't care enough to cut it out. There's a cover of Darkthrone's 'Quintessence' at the end that you wouldn't even notice isn't theirs if you were unaware of its origin.
This is about as far from special as an album can get, but I still like to listen to it on occasion. It has cool riffs and shrieking vocals and stupid drums, but its all professionally executed (or as professional as this style gets) and does its job well. Someone needs to make more music that sounds like other bands when the original is too busy suing itself, so hats off to Impious Havoc for picking up the slack.

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

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