CLANDESTINE BLAZE - City Of Slaughter
Northern Heritage Records
It's kinda taken me a while to write something about this latest release by CLANDESTINE BLAZE (aka: Mikko Aspa). First I'm a fan which might just be putting it lightly. When I look over the course of history and the created output by Mikko Aspa I think of things like consistency, dedication to his craft, definitely a survivor. I won't toss in the word "genius" but the guy does deserve a brilliancy prize for putting out two of the greatest albums in black metal history. Yeah I'm talking about Night of the Unholy Flames and Fist of the Northern Destroyer.
Now while many artists/bands who are still around in the black metal scene might find it easy to just coast along on their past laurels, Mikko just kept CLANDESTINE BLAZE going strong or at least consistent. If you look at just this decade he's put out three great albums and now this his fourth, ninth overall since 1998. City Of Slaughter starts off mildly with "Remembrance Of A Ruin", a track that would've fit better in the middle of the release. It's an easy going run which is followed by the better and blistering fast tremolo buzzsaw melodies laced cuts like "The Voice Of Our Mythical Past" and "Circle Of Vultures".
As for the rest, the title cut "Return Into The City Of Slaughter" is another mild melodic run which at first sounds like early DARKTHRONE until Mikko breaks the rhythm to rant. The song goes on for eight minutes plus it sounds like he was drunk when he recorded the vocals. Probably not but hey I can dream. Anyways the album ends in traditional fashion aka: the bad blackened exit music. But all in all this is another good release by CLANDESTINE BLAZE.
http://www.cfprod.com/nh/
https://clandestineblaze.bandcamp.com/album/city-of-slaughter
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