TAAKE
Noregs Vaapen
(Dark Essence Records / Karisma Records)
46:47min

“True Norwegian Black Metal.” The kind of terminology that everyone surely knows what it’s supposed to be all about. The infamous Norwegian Black Metal scene has been dominating the extreme Metal music world for over 2 decades already with its countless amounts of Black Metal acts that – more or less, have all gained reputation as some true quality acts of the whole genre generally speaking. TAAKE that has been running by Ørjan Stedjeberg (aka Hoest) since the year 1993, has done several recordings with his band, with various line-ups – and basically all of his recordings have exceptionally been received raving reviews all over the world. “Noregs Vaapen”, TAAKE’s 5th full-length studio album, containing of 7 tracks all in all, makes no exception to the band’s somewhat flawless recording catalogue as far as the band’s own intense Black Metal style is concerned; Hoest is a genuine and talented musician to make TAAKE to sound like TAAKE more or less, handling all instruments and lyrics by himself – and therefore managing to give a very unique and distinctive sound to this album – having also invited such persons as Nocturno Culto (DARKTHRONE), Attila Csihar (MAYHEM), Demonaz (IMMORTAL) and a couple of other Norwegian extreme Metal musicians to carry their own black flags proudly on “Noregs Vaapen”, kind of for the name of loyalty and true unity of fellow country mates. As always, the music on “Noregs Vaapen” represents dark, cold and grim Black Metal the way we have used to hear from him on his earlier releases, but still somehow sounding more experimental yet even slightly different compared to his previous outings. What I have always admired in Hoest, is the way he’s able to make TAAKE to sound like a full band merely like one man’s tour de force of some sort of self-masturbating, really caring for how all the elements get melted into one solid piece. He definitely knows his recipe to create something spectacular in terms of song arrangements that have a winner’s recipe tightly wrapped all around them – even stretching away quite a bit from sort of ‘yer-typical-Norse-nekro-sound’ at times when things start getting teeny-weeny interesting for listeners. I don’t know whether this one banjo solo has been fitted into a song called ‘Myr’ on purpose for causing a fair amount confusion among the listeners or not, but the weird thing is it actually does fit to the song like a nose on your face. Talk about some genius insight to see things a bit further out of the safe box here. Summing my innermost feelings up about “Noregs Vaapen”, this record securely lives up the band’s reputation as one of the most anticipated Black Metal releases of the year, not a slightest doubt about it. I even bet this record has already found its way to thousands of homes already – and trust me the buyers of this particular record in question do know their stuff. www.taake.svartekunst.no, www.darkessencerecords.no

Luxi Lahtinen

Luxi Lahtinen

Related reviews / interviews:
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TAAKE - Helnorsk Svartmetall (Frank Stöver)
TAAKE - Taake (Nathan Shapiro)
TAAKE - ...Doedskvad (Edouard Vergriete)

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