Bindrune Recordings: Woodland Denizens unite!

teethofthedivine.com
While the Pacific Northwest has become renowned for its many one man, suicidal black metal projects, the scene is quickly becoming little more than Xasthur/Leviathan cloning with little or no deviation from the template laid down by Wrest and Malefic and I’ve been waiting for a person/band to add a little something different to the genre. Bindrune’s last effort from Celestiial failed miserably, but apparently, that act is Chet W. Scott.

No pseudonym is necessary here as Chet’s project, Blood of the Black Owl, finally delivers a take on doomy depressive black metal that deviates slightly from the suffocating psychosis of his peers. What we have here is still, disturbing and nervous doom gaited black metal, but with a tangible Stoner lean, especially in guitar tone. Now don’t get me wrong, the first time I listened to Blood of the Black Owl with headphones on at bedtime, I had wretched nightmares (seriously), as the draining, lengthy tracks are still fraught with tense paranoia, but its’ less clichéd and insidious and more organic.

The mournful drone of opener “Kills The Timber” immediately cements the stoner aspect of BotBO, but Chet’s pained and often barely audible wails and moans remind you this is no Dazed and Confused trip, and the track’s dramatic, howl laden turn at around the 7:20 mark is stifling and disturbing, like a trip gone bad. The wolves continue their haunting serenade for the start of “The Thunderous Hooves of Two Goats in the Sky” which continues the hazy delirium. Now, the 13-minute “Drinking the Blood of a Lion” and “Like a Coffin Chasing a Womb, His Chariot Becomes a Southern Bloodstorm” sees a tangibly more malevolent atmosphere prevail, sounding like the Disembowelment inspired tones that Azrael (the USBM act on Moribund) might ply. The atonal lope of “Uwwalo”, slows things down even more and its mid song tribal break is downright haunting and “Hammer Comes Crashing Down” sees Chet become far more upfront with his strained wails amid the dramatic, almost Viking/Bathory on barbiturates drone. Closer “A Coven of Vultures” (another 13 minute track), is a draining, droning affair that cements the albums laborious, dread inducing fog that left me feeling truly ‘icky’.

Ultimately, Blood of the Black Owl’s, 70 minute duration with its thicker guitars and hazy malevolence, ends up sounding like Malefic or Wrest tripping balls in the forest, but wont leave you open wristed and insane but red eyed and deliriously paranoid.

HEX Magazine
Consisting of seven tracks, this ambitious metal journey begins by delivering the listener to the heart of the storm immediately upon pressing "play". A broad range of instrumentation is woven through the heavy rhythm guitar in a unique and entrancing manner. The stark, raw vocals of the opening turn to echoing screams and cavernous growls, surrounded by doom tempo drums and meditative breaks of pure drone.

Some brave transitions are made, not only between the tracks themselves, but also ventured within. The overall sound is a seductive, ritualistic atmosphere. Hints of early, abstract Abruptum as well as nods to some of Fenriz's more dynamic projects rear their beast-like heads, but here we find a singular vision creating a stage all of it's own. The very subtle combination of throat singing, wolf howls, flutes, various samples, gongs and bells acheives a majestic, sexy effect. Perfect for an evening of red wine, raging fire and naked flesh on a wolf-skin rug. Blood of the Black Owl is a recording which manages to take your to that very special place. The solo creator of this challenging epic, Chet W. Scott (Ruhr Hunter, Svart Ugle) has presented a number of various experimental, self-released projects through his own Glass Throat Recordings, and this is an excellent introduction to that world.
-Herr Hunter-Field

Metal Nightmare
Less than thirty seconds into this, I knew I was going to like it a lot. BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL brings back the elusive black doom style, sounding a lot like DARKTHRONE's "Quintessence." That's right. The songs are mostly just a handful of riffs, played in repetition. It gets downright hypnotic at times. "Atmospheric" doesn't even begin to describe the dark feeling this album creates. By the third song, you'll swear you were trapped in a dank, musty, poorly lit dungeon and that something might be stalking you. A shoggoth, perhaps? I was just fine with that, up until "Hammer Comes Crashing Down"... The music, the shrieks... I'm not ashamed to say that I came damn close to befouling my undies. Remember when you were a kid and had nightmares? And your parents said there were no such things as monsters? They lied. - Tom Wren

Corazine.com, formerly fishcomcollective.net
Blood of the Black Owl is a blackened slab of funeral doom. A bleak, frigid landscape is created in the mind, one that throbs with ominous life and a huge sense of forbidding. Thick, thick guitar lines and slow, marching percussion form the miasma out of which arise the distant snarls of black metal style vox, as if heard through a dense cloud of manifested doom. An aural accomplishment and a treat for the grim minded.

Ultimatemetal.com
Surprise, surprise. Here we have yet another band touting itself as "primal", "destructive" and "unique". These newer bands being praised as metal's saviors are nothing more than a Flavor-of-the-Month. It is simply more fulfilling to turn to older milestones or stick with what certain legendary bands are releasing. This writer could continue with his sermon, but is there really any point, Faithful Reader?

So, here is where this writer tells you that, despite his preconceived notion that Blood of the Black Owl would be garbage, this album is truly "unique" and is the next logical step in metal? You would be half correct. Blood of the Black Owl does play a fairly fresh sounding mix of black metal, funeral doom and shamanistic ritual music. To simplify matters for the comparison Reader, imagine Skepticism upping the ante on the shamanistic feel to Stormcrowfleet and recruiting Varg Vikernes to play guitar, with Rob Darken behind the microphone.

Being a fan of funeral doom and black metal, this writer took to Blood of the Black Owl quite well. The songs never move beyond a mid-pace, with most of them staying true to the slow tempo of funeral doom. The opener, "Kills in Timber" is an exception, using great black metal riffs throughout most of the nine minutes. Easily the most interesting song here, the rest of the album fails to keep the same standard. A lot of times throughout the seventy-plus minutes, this writer found himself losing interest. The album could have been cut down considerably and had a much more profound impact.

The one thing Blood of the Black Owl is doing that might one day make this writer a fan, is the inclusion of shamanistic passages. It does positively add another dimension to the music presented here. Unfortunately, it is similar to what Nile does with their Egyptian themes. Instead of including these shamanistic rituals into the metal passages, they are thrown to the end of the songs or in between the metal segments. If the band (which is actually one man) would learn to play to their strengths, which are decent black metal riffs ("Hammer Comes Crashing Down" and "Kills in Timber") and the Heathen meditations ("Uwwalo"), Blood of the Black Owl could carve out a special little niche for themselves.

As it stands, Blood of the Black Owl is a decent debut album that should appeal to funeral doom fanatics, as well as some black metal fans that do not suffer from attention deficit disorder. This writer hopes this band works out the kinks and soldiers on, because there is something unique to be heard here. By J.R. Moore

Aquarius Records
The ritualist forest flecked dark ambience of the band Ruhr Hunter has always managed to somehow transcend its ambient classification and appeal to the metal crowd as much as to the ambient drone crowd. Not sure what it is, the foresty bent, the bold Teutonic iconography, the music's distinctly dark elements, or maybe folks could just tell that some metal was lurking within them thar dark drones...

And as if we needed proof, along comes Blood Of The Black Owl, the buzzing black metal project of Chet Scott, the man behind Ruhr Hunter. And true to form, this is no run of the mill black metal band, Scott expands his baritone guitar / drums palette to include stuff like thunder gong and brass tubular bells, organ, young ox horn, antique celestaphone, environmental recordings and black clay ocarina. It's almost like a blackened metallicized Ruhr Hunter.

The sound is an hypnotic, repetitive midtempo Burzumic buzz, often slowing down to a dirge like crawl, each track a relentless trudge through mud and swamp, thicket and forest, the riffs looping and cycling, mantra-like, the vocals a guttural growl one second, an anguished wail the next, in the background are howling wolves, birdsong, strange percussion, a truly mysterious black brew. Much of the record dips into dark ambience, and being that this is basically Ruhr Hunter, those passages are captivating, a dark dreamy ambient interludes underpinned in places by slow motion riffing, in others by chantlike vocals, and still others by throat singing, it's all very haunting and mournful, but this is NOT a RH record, so those brief passages are merely transitions, the songs themselves, the riffs and the melodies, weave their own dark magic, dismal and depressive, as doom as it is black, a mesmerizing fuzzy landscape of black riffs and simple pounding rhythms, gloriously bleak, strangely dreamlike, and most definitely imbued with the spirit of some ancient black forest.

Digitalmetal.com
While the Pacific Northwest has become renowned for its many one man, suicidal black metal projects, the scene is quickly becoming little more than Xasthur/Leviathan cloning with little or no deviation from the template laid down by Wrest and Malefic and I've been waiting for a person/band to add a little something different to the genre. Bindrune's last effort from Celestiial failed miserably, but apparently, that act is Chet W. Scott.

No pseudonym is necessary here as Chet's project, Blood of the Black Owl, finally delivers a take on doomy depressive black metal that deviates slightly from the suffocating psychosis of his peers. What we have here is still, disturbing and nervous doom gaited black metal, but with a tangible Stoner lean, especially in guitar tone. Now don't get me wrong, the first time I listened to Blood of the Black Owl with headphones on at bedtime, I had wretched nightmares (seriously), as the draining, lengthy tracks are still fraught with tense paranoia, but its less clichéd and insidious and more organic.

The mournful drone of opener "Kills The Timber" immediately cements the stoner aspect of BotBO, but Chet's pained and often barely audible wails and moans remind you this is no Dazed and Confused trip, and the track's dramatic, howl laden turn at around the 7:20 mark is stifling and disturbing, like a trip gone bad. The wolves continue their haunting serenade for the start of "The Thunderous Hooves of Two Goats in the Sky" which continues the hazy delirium. Now, the 13-minute "Drinking the Blood of a Lion" and "Like a Coffin Chasing a Womb, His Chariot Becomes a Southern Bloodstorm" sees a tangibly more malevolent atmosphere prevail, sounding like the Disembowelment inspired tones that Azrael (the USBM act on Moribund) might ply. The atonal lope of "Uwwalo", slows things down even more and its mid song tribal break is downright haunting and "Hammer Comes Crashing Down" sees Chet become far more upfront with his strained wails amid the dramatic, almost Viking/Bathory on barbiturates drone. Closer "A Coven of Vultures" (another 13 minute track), is a draining, droning affair that cements the albums laborious, dread inducing fog that left me feeling truly "icky".

Ultimately, Blood of the Black Owl's, 70 minute duration with its thicker guitars and hazy malevolence, ends up sounding like Malefic or Wrest tripping balls in the forest, but wont leave you open wristed and insane but red eyed and deliriously paranoid. By Erik Thomas

Desert-rock.com
Except-that-can! This new piece of the collection of Bindrune Recordings is in line with itself a register rather difficult of access. Formerly known under the name of Svart Ugle, this one-man one-band germinated in the tormented brain of Chet W. Scott in the north of the United States. Executing itself the vocal ones, scratch them, the batteries, the percussions as well as all the sonorous artifices, this washingtonien to that I will not entrust my girls, we favor with septuagint minutes of trip in his cold universe, glauque and dark.

Say that these seven pieces are with difficulty reasonable by the common one mortal is not a vain word and it is necessary to hang on to confront this cd that is announced as being extreme metal. Of fact, if his case sends it directly, without going through the start, in the register of the black metal, one listens of this ovni will delight the amateurs of doom - funeral according to the bio - very very slow.

Formerly member of the project drone The Elemental Chrysalis, his designer pleases himself in a register to the so slowed tempi that I believed that the motor of my platinum had stopped turning normally. The sonorous here worked moods breathe all safe the joy of life and all those that are frustrated by the side fun or jaunty of Sunn0))) or of Earth will rejoice at the gloomy key that Scott adds to his mix doom, of drone and of metal burné manner High One Fire without the velocity.

Plaguehaus
This is the latest offering from Scott W. Chase, know to many as the man behind Ruhr Hunter. BOTBO (formally known as Svart Ugle) shares little with his ambient counterpart, but instead offers up a magnificent slab of blackened doom.

As always, I'm a bit antsy of one-man-metal projects preferring the dynamic of a proper band over the individual's perception. It can be a bit flat and lifeless... with a few exceptions, of course. But fear not, dear listener, this is some killer shite.

So much new metal spewing forth these days is just a caricature of itself. All these preconceived notions and nonsense rules of what is true and what is false. It's refreshing to hear something that's just about the fucking music... just put it on and trance out. A good old fashioned Celtic Frost vs. Darkthrone wrestling match, a touch of ambience over droning guitar, sludge heavy bass lines and no-nonsense drum beats. It's just completely unpretentious doom... even if Scott writes some of the longest song titles ever.

I've been cranking this out almost daily since it arrived. This is the 5th release from Marty "Worm" Rytkonen's Bindrune label. Definitely worth checking out.

Lords of Metal
Erik: Halfway through the opening track 'Kill The Timber' I was a bit disappointed by this release. It sounded boring, the riffs were out of key and with a heavy heart I listened to the rest of the album of Blood Of The Black Owl. But as soon as the howling wolves kick in, my enthusiasm grew and I listened with a more-more-more feeling to the CD.

All tracks are hugely interesting and filled with great riffs and a chilling atmosphere. Each song contains a surprising element to keep things interesting for the listener. Ranging from bottled anger, solemn frozen air and opened caskets, the mood is more than set in a devilish dark way. I must admit that the first song misled me but I am happy I listened on. Most songs meet the ten minute mark and the CD is may be a bit too much black funeral doom to be interesting for over seventy minutes. But for fans of Worship and the slower songs of Pest, I truly recommend this nearly suicidal record.
Rating: 82/100 (details)

Musique Machine
This is the first dark fruits of Chet Scott's of Ruhr Hunter, Elemental Chrysalis and Glass throat records metal project. It's a inventive and surprising mix of Black metal, doom, darkly tuneful traditional metal elements, ritual air, traces of forest cinematics and dark ambience. All with Scott's very distinctive pagan and natural led themes.

He has managed to take formulary chugging and crawling riffs inbreed with grim atmosphere of black metal/doom, Adding layers of ritual air, dark forest spirit, throat singing, clear guitar work, animal sounds and samples to make a moss filled, oak tree bowed black prayer to the forest and metal in all it's dark forms.

Coming in just over 70 minutes running time- Scott fills the album with crawling crude riffs and barren chugs, growled and pained vocals that sound like the forest angry spirit, but it never becomes monotone like many black/ doom releases. Sure this is often bleak, painful and unforgiving, but Scott always add's interesting layers. Take the first track Kills in timber, which launchs it self with a low down & dirt early Celtic frost chug, before stopping midway for a moment of grim ambience, before coming back more melodic and adding in wolf cries to the grim metallic march. Or Drinking the blood of a lion, which starts off with a bleak forest bound post rock air with some wonderful emotive guitar work, that leads into a rough 'n' ready Type O negative like doom chug. Scott using great bell like hits on the down swoop of each riff cycle, as he chants ominously and grimly over the top, before once more the clear melodic element appears over the riff chug once more. The album is topped off with the bleakest and grimiest track here A Coven of vultures, which marries slow painful and melancholy riffling with almost pained Burzum like shriek. Though it does finish with a haunting and eerier refrane that mixes throat singing, ritual drumming with strange Celestaphone strumming and plucking.

Scott has made an album that's a fond celebration of dark and chugging metal craft, but that's also a work a great atmosphere, sound and darkly spiritual depth. That you'll want to replay again and again.
5 Stars
Roger Batty

Hellride Music
Bindrune Recordings seem to have a thing for the one man project. The last release I had come in contact from the label was Celestial's Desolate North which was a pretty cool atmospheric doom release. The album seemed to get mixed reviews all over the place but I dug it. It was heavy as a brick and cold as ice, with some nice flourishes of ambience and drone.

Blood of the Black Owl is the latest one man doom project to come from the Bindrune ranks and this record has really dug itself under my skin. The man in question here is Chet W. Scott and his music is the perfect soundtrack to a funeral march. This stuff is like an icy blast of black metal, slowed down to a swaying crawl; Saint Vitus-tinged doom riffs, swells of drone, atmospheric keyboards and pitch black moods all come together here. This is heavy, uncompromising stuff that is hypnotizing and epic in scope but with an emphasis on slightly fuzzed out frequencies and earth-moving doom.

The vocals are kept mostly in the background and serve as enhancement to the overall atmosphere but sometimes they come to the forefront with eerie chants and agonizing screams. The songs are incredibly slow but never monotonous, although if you are an ADD listener you are going to want to stay far away from this disc. The tracks all sort of lull you into a trance and keep you there with their pulsating heaviness. The keyboards that often back the main riffs are what add to the trance-inducing quality of the songs as they create beautiful melodies that back the doom drenched riffs.

The bar is set high from the very first track, "Kills in Timber" which is a down-trodden doom track that has elements of black metal laced within the lumbering drone. The riffs have a definite doom edge to them and kind of remind me of the subtle grooves that could be heard in some of the Saint Vitus material or even early to mid-period Celestial Season records (think mainly Solar Lovers). The vocals are groaned and screamed and the track manages to burrow itself deeper into your psyche with each passing minute. The song-writing is also mixed up carefully throughout to let many other elements shine through.

"Drinking the Blood of a Lion" has huge melodic washes throughout its instrumental blackened, doom/drone and the whole track never really veers into the realm of caustic heaviness. Chet flirts with some huge, moody doom riffs on "Like a Coffin Chasing the Womb, His Chariot becomes a Southern Bloodstorm" and the whole track evokes this undeniable feeling of sadness that will haunt even the most battle-hardened listener. "Uwwalo" is half a plodding, doom track and the other half a tribal tinged, ambient piece with haunting drum sounds and other effects that will definitely darken your mood a bit.

The record closes with the gut-wrenching duo of "Hammer comes Crashing Down" and "A Coven of Vultures" which are the albums two heaviest and most doomed out pieces in my opinion. Even with the sheer hopelessness of these closing tracks, Chet still finds time to work in chilling, mood enhancing parts that drone in the most ear-pleasing of manners.

It is melodic drone and not just noise for noise's sake which will make this album a welcome addition to those who like their drone a bit more moody and uplifting. This record is an epic piece of work with all of the tracks working well to compliment each other and enhance the overall experience. There isn't a bum track or complaint for me with this record. The sound quality was also far above my expectations as for a one man project this thing sounds really damn good but without a ton of overblown, studio sheen. The doom elements of this record sound threatening as hell but the melodic parts stand out and don't get lost in the mix.

Throw together Skepticism, Saint Vitus, Toadliquor, Celestial Season, Evoken, Celestial and a black metal band and you will have the vaguest idea of what to expect with this record. It really doesn't sound a lot like that description overall but I feel that elements of all of the above bands and then some are incorporated into this eclectic mix. An awesome and intriguing doom record that will be a good listen for the open-minded fan of the genre.

Keith Boyd (SAN DIEGO REVIEWS)
As it turns out there is actually something new under the sun! This Pagan/Heathen Doom soaked Black Metal release is a wonderfully hybrid excursion into recombinant music forms that manages to sound threatening and welcoming at the same time.

BOTBO is apparently the nom-de-metal of one Chet W. Scott who hails from Seattle and who also happens to be the main man behind the blackened ambient group Ruhr Hunter. This one man project is a buzzing and warbling trip through a black and rainy forest at night. Although it has many well done signifiers of the "Sludge-Doom" genre (down tuned guitars, glacial tempos, reverb soaked vocals and murk) it manages to one up them with some nicely crafted thematic interludes and one song (Kills in Timber) featuring a pack of wolves on vocals! The power of this disc is in its committed and primal tone. It sounds like ritual music from some lost tribe of Heathen forest dwelling Orcs. There is the hazy scree of guitar buzz aplenty but the use of chants, gongs, organ washes and tubular bells raises this music above the mud like a bloody caveman fist against the Northern sky.

The packaging (once again done by Mr. Scott) is housed in the generic jewel case but the imagery is amazing. It encompasses Nordic runes and primal Northwest Indian totemic animals such as ravens into a very personal pictographic representation of the music and impulses behind it. The runes are once again a blend in that they include Thor's Hammer and a Thunderbird. Really it's just a beautifully done cover with powerful and mythological iconography that appeals to something deep within us.

The songs and interludes are all on the long side so be prepared to spend some time with this CD. It's not one that gives up its secrets easily. Given time the music will unfurl its black banner all around your senses and send your mind to ancient landscapes. This is a listening experience where you are allowed to suspend your disbelief for an hour or so. We're so pressed for time in this life. It's jump up in the morning and rush out to battle traffic and off to the job to work our asses off and rush to bolt down a meal and fight more traffic and rush to run errands and never, ever enough time. Check out Blood of the Black Owl for a break from all of that. I'm not saying its necessarily relaxing music. It's filled with its own tensions and black to grey color scheme. It does however slow you down a bit. It takes your mind on a trip. Never mind that the lyrics can't be heard or comprehended, never mind that it's hard to classify in a genre. Let a little uncertainty creep into your daily round and see if it doesn't bring relief or perhaps even a bit of inspiration.

Absolute Zero Media
This is what you get from the masterful talents of Chet Scott from well known Ruhr Hunter and Glass Throat Recording fame . When he decides its time to do a Doomy dark metal release. From my 1st listen as this is how I always like to review the Cds I dive into. This is a mix of one part Godflesh one part Neurosis then add elements of Eyehategod, Grief and Floor for good measure. At times a would say bands like Sunn0))), Thergothon and Dusk(USA) hold high reguards to what Mr Scott is creating here. There is still a strong root in the heathen element of nature and the more analog warm sounds. The bass and guitars are so full and heavy with an amazing fuzzy overtone that just make the music all the more enjoyable. The vocals are minimalist but when the come through they are more of a black metal feeling but more in a way like ancient wisdom or deinonychus. The drums and bass add a very industrial the Godflesh element to my ears. Bindrune has on hell of an amazing release here and this will well take them to the next level of labeldom. Thank you again Chet for you take on Doom metal as your is an amazing one bar none.

Black Angel Promotions
The world of One-Man bands is really coming to fruition it would seem. Here lately I can't go a month without getting a One-Man band cd of some sorts, it's normally Black Metal but it's starting to bleed over into other genres, too. Point being, the newest disc I have from a One-Man show is a Funeral Doom/Drone Metal cd from the band Blood Of The Black Owl.

The band's debut album is self-titled and frankly, boring as hell. The spooky and weird side of me wants to really like the work portrayed here, but the average length of the songs is ten minutes or less. And man, that's just way too long for me to listen to the same riff over and over and over again. I know this is very popular in this genre of music, but damned if I can get into it. Nothing really stands out and grabs my attention after awhile - it's just constant riffing over a slow moving back beat with nothing but howls, grunts and soundscapes to keep me occupied. None of this necessarily makes the cd bad, it's all in the eye of the beholder and you may think differently than I do, then again you may smoke alot of dope, too. Either way, if you dig the sounds of Sunno))) and Boris you may enjoy a little Blood Of The Black Owl.

Feast Of Hate And Fear
Blood of the Black Owl originally started as Svart Ugle (releasing a three song demo) in 2004, but soon opted for the name change. Even so, the solo artist behind BOTBO has been fiddling with music for some time, though not so much in the field of metal, as Chet W. Scott was better known for his experimental, neo-folk and pagan music projects Ruhr Hunter and The Elemental Chrysalis. The switch over doesn't mess with his musical credibility whatsoever, as I've always found the fundamentals of dirge and doom to be rather folky in their musical progressions, just seriously amplified. Anyhow, this self-titled album under a new moniker is a little over an hour, and packed with elements of his old sounds delightfully crashing into newer vehicles. What Blood of the Black Owl emits is a mostly funeral dirge, with some aspects of black metal (guitar play and vocals), all the while laced with field recordings (wolf calls, wind blowing, crickets) and pagan instruments (ox's horn, brass bells, clay ocarina, etc). The vocals are interestingly laid down, as there is hardly a word throughout, but instead we are creeped out to a mix of whispered hisses, howls of pain, and a throaty growl not unlike the Nepalese vocal meditations of Bonist monks - all of which I would think more black metalists would want to copy. Already mentioning that this is over an hour, at eight songs, you know these musical numbers are in epic lengths, ranging from seven to thirteen minutes and often traveling as slow as refrigerated syrup, yet holding my interests throughout. The future looks bright for this CW Scott project, but I'm sure he'll want to keep the music as dark as possible. (Feb 24, 2007)

Blabbermouth
Describing BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL's self-titled debut as "blackened doom" is not inaccurate but does not tell the whole story. With plenty of the suffocating heaviness of funeral doom, yet not reaching the muddy bottom of an act like CATABOMBS, and mining some of the same accents and majestic slivers of ASUNDER, this one-man project from Chet W. Scott holds its own in a surprisingly expanding doom genre. Mr. Scott does more than lay down bass, drum, and guitar tracks, he also brings to the table instruments such as "thunder gong," tubular bells, organ, and a host of other unique instruments, not to mention what he terms "environmental recordings." Of course, few outside of diehard circles will fully comprehend (and may downright hate) this 70-minute journey into the abyss, but even a handful outside of the circle (given a chance to absorb it) should be able to at least appreciate the album's transcendental and mystical qualities.

Once the listener adjusts to the steam rolling pace and unholy howls (including the baying of wolves and falling rain), sinister leads, and droning agony of "Kills in Timber" and "The Thunderous Hooves of Two Goats in the Sky", the disc's holism begins to seep through the pores. It may be a lightly plucked string that chillingly rings out, deep, monkish chants, the clang of a bell, or one man's purging howl that takes hold. But what seemingly begins as a series of parts soon turns into a sometimes frightful, even unnerving, and often trance-inducing whole that separates the soul from the mortal body. Much like the impressive effort that is ASUNDER's "Works will come Undone", it is some of those same accents and the little things in general that bring to life the behemoth crawls and bottom-feeding blackness of the arrangements. Subtle, yet gripping, the bits and pieces of percussion — whether a basic tribal beat or the nuance of a bell struck in ritualistic fashion — that are not always immediately grasped the first time take on a life of their own with repeat listens. It is this kind of doom-based minimalism that is far more cerebral in feel than what may be caught by the casual listener.

BLOOD OF THE BLACK OWL is both otherworldly and grounded in man's conception of nature and the earth. It is the balance struck that helps to separate the album from the herd. Maybe not a doom masterpiece (ASUNDER's latest is a bit better), but an accomplished album that is easily recommended for the discerning doom fan.
- Scott Alisoglu 7.5 out of 10

Chronicles of Chaos
by: Todd DePalma (8.5 out of 10)

Excluding the mythologies of Lovecraft and Tolkien, whose creations have been well exploited but not completely exhausted in every province of the metal kingdom, foreign appellations have become far less endearing and mysterious than they might have been a few years back. At least that's my view from here in the States, where naming one's group in the old Norse, German or Slavic language too often leads to misapplication, pretension and posturing regardless of family roots, translating into one fat stamp of: ¡Generic!

A suspiciously babel fished name usually betrays poor songwriting plus identity crisis. Unlike the South Americans or even the Engrish speaking Japanese, most wannabe polyglots unanimously pussy-out on singing a full song in bastard-tongue, and where's the "schadenfreude" in that?

Blood of the Black Owl first began under the awkward name Svart Ugle, but despite appearances released a promising three-track CD-R in 2005 before founder Chet Scott, a current resident of Seattle, bearded and deadly, also founder of Glass Throat Recordings as well as the long-running earth-ambient act Ruhr Hunter and, it may as well be said, a man of honor, set right this contrivance with a name befitting its central theme, now spelled out more directly. Or is it? The whole premise of the music, Scott says, was based on a dream he had of a burnt owl seeking shelter in the branches of dead wood. Expressing a like-vision in shades of folk, ambient and metal, _Black Owl_'s seven tracks are romantic reveries of heathen blood on heathen soil, perfectly sprung from the Northwest United States.

To that end, the album's energy is at once fearsome, propelled by mammoth baritone guitar riffs, punctuated by Tom Warrior-esque grunts or steadied by decaying refrains of stale, sickly import -– a gimping, fevered wandering that moves closer to the very dreams said to inspire it -- but also vicarious.

Sounds of thunder bleed into sustain while a perpetually humming organ pipes clouds of tension to substitute and blend with the outskirts at night; a noisome darkness filled with a lingering and unbroken presence so that you'd rather not know what exactly is humming and falling from out there in the trees. But Scott transgresses fog with horn and bough in hand. Dark woods and isolation feed emotions set free by low-end dirge, tubular bells, young-ox horn, ocarina and lonely drum, pursued by coyote howls and Scott's own incomprehensible mutterings. Song titles like "Drinking the Blood of a Lion" and "Like a Coffin Chasing a Womb, His Chariot Becomes a Southern Bloodstorm" as well as runic portraits of bone and earth seen on the cover (notice too the way the "bird" figure morphs into Mjolnir or Thor's Hammer) further amplify the talismanic arc interred on record.

Often broken into three to four movements per song (on average stretching seven minutes each) each track alternates between sloughed guitar chugging and mild ambient trances. There is no distinction of "primitivism" between the two, only amplification. And although the music has already been compared to drone, black and stoner metal, it lacks the typical rock-flavored riffing, monotonous non-structure and bleak atmosphere of each to justify that simple categorization or comparison. True enough, _Blood of the Black Owl_ is a long and strange album and sounds as if helmed by one man alone, but if anyone can be paired side by side here with Scott in acoustics, it's Justin Broadrick, not Malefic. "Drinking the Blood of a Lion", perhaps the most memorable song on the disc, creates foaming channels of guitar distortion through simple chord progressions, alternating leads under starry melodies and sounding similar to the first two Jesu albums, but without pandering to that audience; it seeks its own path and in its own way. Nor are the ambient or "shamanic" tie-ins indicative of any of one group or region by sound alone. These airy meditations recall an archaic and general romanticism of Native Indian and Buddhist rites as much as they do the icy North.

Are they "culturally accurate" demonstrations? Perhaps not, but I don't think they're meant to be. It is a dream acted out in a heavy wanderlust of emotion and a great step toward something fresh and defining.