Hate from Hell

Don’t mistake this Vrag with the one I did a review some time ago. This is a different band coming from Australia, they consist of four members and they have existed since 1999. Although they have been into the scene for a long time, since their first demo release in 2001, and quite active with a lot of demos, they didn’t manage to release a full length album until 2009. Since then they have released four full length albums in total. I recently came across their latest release, Hate from Hell which was released back in the 10th of December 2018 by Schattenkult Produktionen in cd format limited to 300 copies, it contains eleven tracks and its overall duration is about forty minutes. It is just so obvious by having a look at the cover, the title and generally the layout and photos, what you should expect to listen to.

As you have already understood, Vrag plays a raw, primitive, violent and hateful Black Metal, loyal and devoted to the old school, primitive Black Metal. The band connects its classic influences in heavy and thrash metal, as also its first wave of Black Metal ones, with the violent and cold, Scandinavian Black Metal style, something expressed with absolute honesty inside the tracks. The riffing is a mixture of classic tremolo Black Metal riffs with thrash, heavy and sometimes punk elements. Most of the time, the tempo is fast, unleashing fury and hate to the listener. There are a few mid tempo passages, other times thrashy, other times dark and groovy, while there are even fewer slow, dark and ugly moments. Generally, the songs are not too long, between three and four minutes, making each track easily digested by the listener. The structure of the tracks is straightforward, with distinct components, verse, bridge, chorus if there is one and some solos here and there, placed all together to form a simple but interesting and catchy result.

Regarding the sound, the production is raw and primitive, giving that rehearsal – like, dirty sound which will remind you a lot of the first, underground Black Metal era. The mixture is balanced and, despite the quite cloudy result from the production, it manages to make almost every instrument audible. The performance of the band is at a high level by each one of its four members. The guitars are hateful, passionate and at the same time accurate. The drums are very powerful and energetic, maintaining a nice balance between accuracy and passion. The bass is not audible. The vocals are harsh, violent Black Metal vocals, passionate and expressive, they add a variety of feelings to the final result. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained in the booklet of the cd. They speak about Satan, they narrate stories about the war with other religions and they express their hatred towards christianity.

In conclusion, I was not impressed by Hate from Hell, although it is a good release. The ideas are interesting but they lack originality, the atmosphere is good but resembles the old Black Metal days, a lot and finally, the sound is not good. If the sound was better I would enjoy the album and appreciate Vrag’s effort, but not I can’t suggest this album to anyone but only to those few old school elitists. The songs I liked most are Black Metal has no Future Only the Past, Stormhate of Evil and Nine Stations of the Inverted Cross. If you like old school, primitive Black Metal you may appreciate this release. The rest of you, prefer something else.