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Arafel
Tales Of Ancient Forest
(Beverina/demo - 2000)
An absolute favorite underground live band from Israel for me since 1997 and despite several live shows and years of activity (with some scandals and acting stints in between), this demo was a long time coming, and their studio debut would take another few years after some unfortunate line-up changes. The music is black metal inspired by Russian folk music played by ex-Russians. The actual sound is ferocious black metal with keyboards, like Satyricon or a non-cheesy Dimmu Borgir with the energy of Cradle of Filth and the melodic pagan sound of early Satyricon with some interesting Melechesh rhythmic aggression (they performed with Melechesh back when that band was unknown). The four tracks here (no intros) are well developed, perhaps not as original sounding, but they are dynamically composed and the song-writing flows and builds beautifully. The keyboards are balanced and aren't given main billing, merely adding another rich layer to the sound. Leon Notik provides the guitars and superbly powerful black metal raspy vocals, but he had to leave the band after this for army service. Minor flaws include the muddy demo-quality sound, some clean gung-ho backing vocals that could use some improvement on the last track, and their playing can get somewhat imprecise, but their energy and songwriting more than make up for all this, which was also a huge boost in mosh pits. The amazing infectious energy of their ferocious live performance is captured pretty well on this demo. The noticeable line-up change after this, the changes in sound, and the fact that this material was never re-recorded makes this one of those rare demos I can't do without.
Way of Defender
(Sound Age Productions - 2003)
After several fluctuating line-up changes, the remaining members settled on a slightly new sound for this debut studio release which is actually comprised of many influences and sounds, but which come together for an exciting melodic black/death concept album. There is relatively slightly less of the stupendous energy of the previous lineup which appeared in live concerts, and to a certain extent in the demo. But it is still dynamic, quite energetic and very enjoyable. The primary sound is now Satyricon mixed with Cradle of Filth, but at times I heard Marduk, Dark Tranquillity, Dimmu, Melechesh, some melodic thrash/power/death metal, as well as many unique Russian folk tunes (acoustic, clean and chants). In short, the compositions don't limit themselves to any single sound or speed, ranging from blast beats to melodic death to folk tunes, and the result is very dynamic, a concept album. The sound mix is superb, helping the energy of Arafel. The black metal Satyricon-esque raspy growls are not as ferocious and are much more clipped than in the demo, not roaring with gusto, but still very good and very similar in its raspy quality which is made harsher by the mixing, sounding like he gargled shards of glass. The instrumental playing has improved a lot and is superb, although there are some really terrible off-tune clean vocals, but these are thankfully scarce. Overall I found this album strong, exciting and constantly interesting and dynamic. A solid recommendation.
Second Strike: Through the Flames of the Ages
(Sound Age Productions - 2005)
Two things hit you like a ton of bricks with this new release by Arafel: The new wall-of-sound approach that obviously is influenced by Emperor, and the terrible new production and sound mix. I even checked out an alternative source to make sure the sound problems weren't only on my end. On the musical side, the change is actually interesting for a while, but one must re-mix it in one's head to appreciate the power of the songs, and the fatigue from the sound mix soon takes over. Not being a sound engineer I do not know how to define the problem, but it bothered me throughout the whole album and seriously killed my enjoyment. Blast beats abound in this one with too-prominent drums, combined with dominating guitars that feel like someone fiddled with the equalizer too much and got their sound wrong, the keyboards are often drowned in the sound and not mixed well, and the vocals have been mixed so low as to fade to the background. The mix as a whole is way too 'noisy' in a wrong way, like when you stand too close to one speaker in an array, and one that turns out to have a broken twitter component. It also sounds like they tried to reproduce the sound of the original Emperor's In The Nightside Eclipse to make the vocals have that raw echoed sound from a distance, and then a non-professional upped the drums and guitars and played with the mix and killed it. Once again, the music is very Emperor, complete with a relentless wall-of-sound of blast, roar and dark synths, as well as some intense jagged riffing and keyboards, mixed with many Finntroll-esque folk tunes (including a well played Skyclad-esque violin), and several variations on the vocals (many of them venomous, distorted, spitting rasps). There's also 'Serpent Land', a remade version of the folk-heavy track from the demo. Sometimes the compositions soar and feel like they could be a good Emperor derivative, other times they get a little clunky as they either try too hard to make it relentlessly intense with too much blasting, or because they tried to blend Emperor black metal with catchy melodic folk tunes and even with heavy metal solos. In the end, I felt that this release is not as good as the previous in terms of composition and musicality for the reasons described above, although the album could still be potentially strong and enjoyable with a proper sound mix. But it's hard to tell since my ears have a headache.
For Battles Once Fought
(NoiseArt - 2011)
What with the line-up changes with every single album, and the changes in sound, one could assume that after 6 years this band had stopped functioning. But here is another release (final?) from one of Israel's greatest bands, with yet more changes. Helge Stang from the German Equilibrium takes over vocals and brings with him a powerful death growl that sometimes brings to mind Jeff Walker from Carcass, other times Mikael Akerfeldt, but he also delivers plenty of black metal rasping depending on the type of song. Genre-wise, as many bands do nowadays, there is now a blend of many of the genres in their previous repertoire with the addition of both melodic and a touch of technical death metal. In other words this covers everything from viking/pagan metal (Satyricon/Finntroll), intense melodic death (Dissection), brutal death metal, thrash metal, and Russian Skyclad-esque folk tunes with violin, some folk tunes also reminiscent of early Amorphis. The only thing missing is the Emperor sound from the previous album, and in general, this is primarily death metal rather than black metal, so that's different. This is not necessarily a good thing as I enjoyed their more black metal offerings and this melodic death blend is way too popular and overused nowadays. But the folk music is an interesting element. In fact, many tracks made me think of an unholy offspring of At the Gates and Skyclad. Thankfully the production, perhaps a tiny bit bass-heavy, has been greatly cleaned up since the last album that was fiddled to death. Unfortunately their unique black-metal-Russian-folk sound is not as present in this album (it's more like folk-death), neither is their superb raw black ferocity which made me fall in love with them, which is replaced with chugging death metal, and the songs are more derivative of the afore-mentioned bands. The compositions, in an attempt to be constantly interesting and intense, sometimes lose sight of the musicality and structure, pounding with a barrage of styles, or suddenly injecting the song with surprising folk sounds, but not necessarily developing and building the music to make it soar. Exceptional stand-outs with good musical development include the intense opener 'Sword's Hymn', as well as 'Kurgan' and the magnificent 'Wolf's Hunt'. All that said, the compositions are dynamic, full of variety, well performed, energetic and enjoyable, so this is a good album and is recommended, it's just not the Arafel of yesteryear.
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