Ablaze #35, Germany (translated into English)
My first thought was: “Great sound”! And the sound is great indeed, if one may call it that way. Who disliked the band, would smash the CD at once just because of their rough sound, but: First of all the clinking guitars, rattling cymbals and musty bassdrum-attacks fit like the fist on the eye to the 8 tracks offered by Hagal, secondly in this stage of the bands development you will hardly expect a pure production. All this sounds probably more low-stacking, than it is to sound in the long run, because the three bandmembers play with much feeling in the typical nordic Black Metal style – same as DIMMU BORGIR did on “For All Tid”, for example. The vocals are outstanding good, and also the acoustic guitar, which gives some alternation from time to time, does its work. The alternation is the largest weak point on “Karg”, the songs are very long, from 8 to 18 minutes (in 3 parts). Like that the one hour does not offer what one could accommodate in this time. However, the booklet is very prettily and professionally arranged (12 pages and colour print), containing all lyrics. If one considers that the material of the demo CD is far over one year old, one can probably expect a lot of HAGAL. (flo)
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