Band:	Carpathian Forest
Album:	Black Shining Leather
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	1998
Guest review by:	Prugor

01. Black Shining Leather
02. The Swordsmen
03. Death Triumphant
04. Sadomasochistic
05. Lupus
06. Pierced Genitalia
07. In Silence I Observe
08. Lunar Nights
09. Third Attempt
10. The Northern Hemisphere
11. A Forest [The Cure cover]

Open, a creepy synthesized intro with the sounds of moans and slight other discreet noises that only accompany the twisted and obviously dangerous mind of Nattefrost, the longtime front man for Carpathian Forest. Thats how Black Shining Leather starts out, which the album begins with the title track, which is excellent from start to finish. The occasional keyboard pops up here and there, but mostly what is heard is a good driving bass line, which Carpathian Forest is known for.

The album isn't high quality, but it isn't a raw production. However, from the post era of Second Wave Black Metal, Carpathian Forest seem to be one of the most original bands out there, few such as them have ever mixed the sounds of Rock and Roll flavor into the hateful tides of Black Metal. This album, Black Shining Leather, deals with Misanthropy at it's best, as with every single album release after this one. The opening track, as said before, lays down the line of what this album will sound like, very bass driven, very vocally dependent, and somewhat on the side of oddities that only rivals Freak Shows in Carnivals.

Like I said before, the first track which is titled as Black Shining Leather starts out with an eerie synthesized keyboard sound, with the glimpse of moaning, shivering, and other amounts of pleasure from a female guest. Not very loud, but only in the background for measure. It then opens up right there after with the bass guitar pounding, guitars cranking out a very minimalistic array of chords, and the drums pushing here and there with cymbals galore. Nattefrost's lone voice comes in seconds after the seconds of the instruments starting, immediately you can hear its Rock-N-Roll sorta swing, which actually is very different from said bands around the same time that this album was put out. The Swordsman comes up right after this, the bass guitar is also very loud but not annoying. Its almost taking place of the guitar for how much you can hear it in the song. This song is another very good song off this album, Nattefrost's vocal array isn't very wide, but its fitting between his grim and his whispered vocals.

The third song, Death Triumphant, sounds slightly off course from the first two songs, adding in a bit more keyboards and a slower tempo, but still in the midst of all the misanthropy, the bass lines are present, if not out in the open. With the song Sadomasochistic, it sounds a lot more like the first two songs, but with a hint of a good Rock n' Roll feel to it. There isn't much to say, because the rest of the album, aside from the last song, a cover song called " A Forest ", which was originally done by The Cure, adds a bit of everything to this release. High in the taste and feel of Rock n' Roll, but still hateful, misanthropic, and just as evil as any other Black Metal release of that time.

I give this album, a 8.5 out of 10, simply because its a great, even excellent recording, but not their best in my opinion.

Stand out tracks - A Forest, Sadomasochistic, and Pierced Genitalia.