Band:	Uncreation's Dawn
Album:	Holy Empire Of Rats
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	November 21, 2012
Guest review by:	Boxcar Willy

01. Holy Empire Of Rats
02. Devouring Blight
03. Jaws Of Pestilence
04. Serpent Of The Old (Ye Ever Wrathful One)
05. Sepulchral Madness
06. Operation Ragnarök
07. Wotanic Shocktroops
08. Abandoning The Prison Of Flesh
09. Aards Verdoemenis
10. Sudenveri
11. Outro

Black metal is an extremely varied style of music. It can be hateful and raw, or warm and enveloping. It can be made by a band of many, or by a single person in a small home studio. The sheer variety and creativeness of it is a major attraction to me. But, as with everything good, something can go wrong. Uncreation's Dawn is a black metal band out of Finland, formed at the end of the old millennium. Upon reading the info sheet a picture started to form in my mind of a harsh, cold, and relentless black metal assault. What I received upon plugging in my headphones was something I was not expecting. The black metal was nasty, quick and in your face. Plenty of blastbeats and heavy strung riffs filled my headphones to the point of a musical implosion.

So you must be thinking "Only, a 6?! What gives?"

Well, "What gives" is that the relentless assault can only take one step before it falls flat on its face. The drums and riffs fade away into a monotonous blur of sound; the vocals simply start to get annoying? It all got boring, fast. Not only boring, but almost annoying. The songs started to mix together to the point where I couldn't differentiate between them. Song after song followed the same formula: fast-paced, growled/gurgled vocals, and old-school hybrid riffs. The production falls flat in many areas, song mixing is the exact same, the bass is occasionally overpowering and muddy.

Imagine a huge army of medieval knights ready for battle. The have all their armor, their swords, and horses. They would be ready for battle, apart from the fact that they are missing their shoes. Without them, they are clumsy and virtually useless in battle. They have many aspects of what would make a good knight, but one small detail causes the whole plan to crumble to pieces.

It's not all bad, however. As repetitive and annoying as the vocals are, they have their moments. The violin outro is simply beautiful. I feel that if the band would have taken a little more time to provide some more variation and worked on some of the production, I feel that this could have been a stunning release.

But for now, it remains another album in the pile of mediocrity.