Description

Portuguese pressed music cassette. White cassette with black and white print.

This split is advertised as consisting of previously unreleased old material from Norway’s Ildjarn and Ukraine’s Hate Forest. Upon release, it was almost universally regarded as excellent material, and even today, the initial reaction holds up. However, there are some significant problems with it. For starters, the material advertised as being by Ildjarn was not actually Ildjarn material. It was the work of his frequent collaborator Nidhogg. It’s still great material; to be honest, I actually enjoy it a lot more than a lot of Ildjarn’s music. In addition, Nidhogg claims that much of the material was re-recorded without his consent for the split, and apparently plans to re-record it. Nidhogg does not seem to have been bothered by the misattribution, but was bothered by the re-recording. None of this affects my enjoyment of the music itself, but it does serve as a particularly unfortunate example of record label meddling. The other problem with the material is the mastering. “Loudness war” problems are almost to be expected in modern black metal, but this release is loud and digitally distorted even by modern black metal standards. The mastering is so bad that even non-audiophile listeners have complained about it, and the problem affects both sides of the split. If you’re willing to overlook those problems, though, this set contains a lot of highly enjoyable material. To me, this is the point where Hate Forest started being an interesting black metal band (I would also recommend their later albums Purity, Battlefields, and Sorrow), and the Nidhogg side makes me wish he had released more material (maybe he will, someday). If you’re familiar with Hate Forest’s later work, you have a fairly good indication of what you’re getting here; in no way should this be thought of as a lesser work than those releases. Nidhogg’s work can also be heard on the sole album of Sort Vokter and on several of his collaborations with Ildjarn (credited as “Ildjarn-Nidhogg”). This, again, is up to the quality of his other contributions. So ultimately, I strongly recommend this split for fans of ambient/atmospheric black metal, but it comes with the caveats I have mentioned above. If those are unlikely to affect your enjoyment of this material, you will probably get a lot of rewarding listening out of this set.

Track list:
1. Ildjarn -Forest Crypt
2. Ildjarn -Ashes Of Stars
3. Ildjarn -Birds Of Misty Dusk
4. Ildjarn -Gates To Bottomless Halls
5. Ildjarn -Mountains Covered With Snow Forever
6. Ildjarn -Northern Kingdoms Fell
7. Hate Forest -Cimmerian Shadows
8. Hate Forest -Howl Of Hyperborean Winters
9. Hate Forest -Sigil Of The Gateway
10. Hate Forest -Crowned With Crescent Horns
11. Hate Forest -Abyss Wanderer