Hailing from the dark forests of Germany, Örastimar brings us their debut offering Näster. This is a raw and hard hitting EP that keeps true to black metal ethics. Very little extra frills or added synths or gimmicks. Just straight misanthropy and hatred. Nothing more soothing than some raw black metal like this I tell you.
The ambient opening intro is a great start to the dark nature of this album. Morphing into raw and ear splitting guitars with deep and punishing drums, its almost like a call back home into the dark void. The song writing here is well done, keeping things distinct and to the point with out needing any extra fills, sometimes people lose the point and add on all these extra features and gimmicks, when all you really need are some solid cold riffs like what you have here and a dark attitude. The vocals are ear piercing as well, screeching and harsh. Like a monstrous creature lost in the dark woods.
There is something almost hypnotic to it all, though. Especially to the more subdued and slower parts. The last track Mar is a good example of just that. Starting out fast and strong, and almost playing off of the guitar feedback from the previous track. It goes in hard with powerful drumming and the fantastic guitar playing, and ends to transition into a tribal drum beat and eerie dark guitars. Something about it all feels very twisted in its own way, and the slow part feels like stumbling upon a dark rituals deep within the Germanic woods. What I love too is how the melody from those ambient guitars transition into the harsh tremolo picking that we all love from black metal.
There isn’t really much to hate on with this EP, when I usually do find things I can nitpick. This release kinda hit everything nicely for me, and really blew me away as my expectations aren’t usually high especially for ‘raw black metal’. Örastimar really proves them selves here and this release really makes me want more from these guys and wish this EP could’ve been a fully blown debut album. But, we’ll see what these guys have in store, as I know I’m keeping my eyes on them.