Those plucky chaps over at the splendid Ihate Records camp have been raiding the archives again, this time bringing us the complete collection of music put out by the band Endarker. “Who are they?” you may well ask. A fair question. As it turns out, Endarker were a Swedish band who brought their own brand of musical bleakness to the world between 1986 and 1991.
This is, as you might expect given the above, a production with a hearty thrash metal base, mixing in the same kind weird, messed up vibe of other similar acts around this time, mixing hefty dollops of blackened filth and proto-death metal vibes into the mix too. Think then, a cleaner sounding Mayhem, with more Celtic Frost and Autopsy vibes thrown in for good measure. Sound good? Well, actually, it is. I know – no one is more surprised than me. Often, when these “gems” are uncovered from the vaults, it’s clear why they remained locked away from human ears for so long – most often because they’re simply not very good. Not so in this case. “Among the Shadows” is actually a pretty cracking release, and I found myself really enjoying this much than I expected to.
Firstly, there’s no denying that there is a primitive approach to the riffing here, and you may well listen to the likes of “Vivid Imagination”, with it’s none-too-subtle Celtic Frost circa Morbid Tales influence in the main riff, and wonder why the hell you haven’t heard this album before. In a world where Usurper and Scepter were both able to release albums along similar lines, but that weren’t anywhere near as good or compelling, the first four tracks of this compilation deserve to be heard by a much wider audience, being nicely remastered in 2013, and sounding really powerful and dark.
The second portion of the compilation sounds a whole lot more feral – old demos and the like that retain the primal rawness of the source material. Here, Endarker, while still having some of the black metal influences, are much more clearly in thrash metal mode, complete with shuffling drum beats and hoarse bellowing, rather than the blackened rasp evident in the first few tracks on the CD. Frankly, while the second half of the CD has some historical interest, the likelihood of I (or anyone else, for that matter) wanting to listen to some barely-in-time recorded-on-a-TDK90 material like “Slaughtered” again is pretty slim. That being said, the first four tracks and the track “Darkness” are worth the admission alone. If approached as a killer EP with some extra material, you’ll find yourself enjoying this a fair bit – but don’t expect to treat the latter half of the album with anywhere near as much joy in your heart.
(6.5/10 Chris Davison)
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