Berserk – …from the Celtiberian Woods

Traditionally sloppy but quite atmospheric Pagan/Black Metal from Spain; proud warriors hailing their ancestry by means of our beloved abrasive, noisy music. This music is victorious, warlike: by use of aesthetic elements of Black Metal (blastbeats, screamed vocals, narrative structures) the band paints a romanticists’ view of Celtic pride & valour.

With a clear, roomy production with attention to detail lengthy songs are crafted, interspersed by violent blasting sequences of Black Metal. Most of the material is more ‘pagan-oriented’ in that melodies are more important, together with simple keyboard chord progressions. Never does the music become overly happy (fortunately), which is a problem that many bands in this genre have. There is little ‘folk’ here, Berserk is first and foremost a Metal band.

I am charmed by the spirit of the underground, but some attention should be payed to a few amateuristic mistakes: the screamed vocals are well done, but there are a few parts of clean singing which just doesn’t work out. The largest problem is simply that these parts are out of tune which is a bloody shame. Furthermore, it seems that the drums don’t really keep up during the fast parts; this produces a bit of a disjointed feel and you find yourself tapping along with the blastbeat, wondering why it doesn’t make sense. These problems are merely of a technical nature so they do not really matter to the music itself, but still I think that if you want to play something special, you should be completely capable of it.

Berserk play a good dose of “Celtic Black Metal” as their label calls it — highly enjoyable. Next time I hope they will have rid themselves of these “childhood diseases” as the Dutch expression goes.