Striborg - Nefaria – A Tragic Journey Towards The Light
Displeased Records

file under black/pagan metal

Evil Dr. Smith: The Lors Of Metal chief warned me: “Man, this is so bad, it just can’t be any worse. I’m counting on your creativity Evil Dr. Smith, hahaha [/evil grin].” Well, always in for some insanely crap album I was pretty curious what kind of garbage we got with this Striborg. Knowing the chief’s taste a little, and especially what he dislikes, I assumed it must be one of those true evil-frostbitten-grim-permafrost-unholy-necro-misanthropic-pandabear-metal bands, and yes: I was right. Striborg is exactly like that. During the first spin especially the deformed black metal shrieks and squeals sound remarkable, but the “songs” sounds like “I can’t play, but I’m angry, so lets make a lot of noise that it would looks like it’s all very evil and mean.” So I was pretty fast fat up with this shit. Eventually, I gave the album a second chance, and suddenly something strange started to happen. The production is horrible, the music is simple, monotonous and played rather sloppy, the vocals sound like an agonizing Daffy Duck who is anally raped by the drum sticks of Animal (Muppet), but the atmosphere slowly started to get a grip on me. Confessing to say it’s good is a bit too much, but the raw, atmospheric, underground black metal with synthesized ambient parts has a fog-like, thick swamp vibe that has a certain enslaving horror-element in it. What a surprise!

Although it may not be such a surprise, because the man behind Striborg is some fellow that called himself Sin-Nanna, a guy from the island Tasmania, Australia, who’s playing extreme metal for almost twenty years now. He started Striborg back in 1993 (which was called Kathaaria in the first four years of existence) and he is highly inspired by Bathory, Darkthrone, Judas Iskariot and Black Funeral. During the last ten years he released a huge amount of music, so he’s quite the experienced guy. That he started on a level that made me totally agree with my chef proves the 1995-recording ‘A Tragic Journey Towards The Light’, which is added as a bonus on this album. Now that’s what I call C.R.A.P.! But the recordings he made last May and which is released as ‘Nefaria’, is a wet nightmare for the underground black metal horde that love acts like Xasthur, Leviathan and others. Sin-Nanna is the real Tasmanian Devil, because, after all: Tasmania is not coincidentally an anagram for I am Satan.