Band:	Dark Funeral / VON
Album:	Devil Pigs
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Jeff

Dark Funeral [In The Sign]
01. Open The Gates
02. Shadows Over Transylvania
03. My Dark Desires
04. In The Shadow Of The Horns
05. Equimanthorn [Bathory cover]
06. A Call From The Grave [Bathory cover]

VON [Satanic Blood]
07. Devil Pig
08. Veinen
09. Watain
10. Lamb
11. Veadtuck
12. Satanic Blood
13. Christ Fire
14. Von

"Devil Pigs" is not a new album of Dark Funeral, but a split cd with the American black metal band Von. With this cd in fact you could find two albums. The first one is "In The Sign..." which is a re-edition of the album of the EP of 2000 and the second one "Satanic Blood" one of the two only demos of Von. No doubt that if you are a fan of Black Metal, this album is a must have and one of the reason is the fact that you could listen to the music of Von which is more than hard to find.

It's hard to talk about a split cd. The reason is that we could have two totally different music in only one cd. This is the case with this "Devil Pigs". In one hand, you have the very good EP of Dark Funeral "In The Sign..." with, as you certainly know, a lot of technical Black Metal and the quality in the music and lyrics of the Swedish band. And on the other hand, the more than basic music of Von. Yeah "Satanic Blood" is certainly one of the poorest album ever in the quality of music writing, if you can find more than 10 riffs in all this cd, well I 'm sure that you have good ears. But however this combo is for a lot of Black Metal fans a cult band, and the reason is that they are one of the first bands to play Black Metal in USA. If you want to see what was Black Metal in the 80's I think that this album is for you.
The problem with this album in fact is the difference between the "two" cd. "In The Sign..." with a real good production a real quality of writing and the two really good covers of Bathory "Equimanthorn" and "A Call From The Grave" and this "Satanic Blood" which is maybe not a bad album but which suffer of a terrible production and a sound more than horrible.
At the end this album is for the true Black Metal fans and for the ones who don't know the demo of Von and want to listen to it [and like very minimalist music]. But as I said it's maybe not bad it depend of your musical taste... but good luck if you want to listen to something.

If you are a real fan of Black Metal no doubt that this album is a must have for you but on the other hand, this is certainly not a must have for the ones who already have the EP of Dark Funeral and for the common Metal heads who, I think, couldn't find something interesting in the music of Von? Anyway this album is not a bad one at the opposite and the presence of this demo of Von in it is like a real curiosity that you should try to listen to [you could be the only judge on the quality of this demo then?]