Showing posts with label 1914. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1914. Show all posts

Thursday, October 7, 2021

1914/Where Fear And Weapons Meet/Naplam Records/2021 CD Review

 


  Ukraine's  1914  have  returned  with  a  new  recording  which  shows  them  continuing  the  blackened  mixture  of  sludge,  doom  and  death  emtal  from  their  previous  releases  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  2021  album  "Where  Fear  And  Weapons  Meet"  which  will b e  released  on  October  22nd  by  Napalm  Records.


  World  War  I  era  music  samples  start  off  the  album  before  going  into  a  heavier  direction  while  synths  can  also  be  heard on  a  couple  of  songs  and  also  brings  in  more  of  an  epic  and  symphonic  atmosphere.  When  the  music  speeds  up  a  decent  amount  of  blast  beats  are  also  utilized  along  with  the  solos  and  leads  also  being  done  in  a  very  melodic  style.


  Grim  black  metal  screams  are  also  a  very  huge  part  of  the  recording  while  tremolo  picking  is  also  added  into  some  of  the  faster  riffing.  The  songs  also  add  in  a  decent  mixture  of  slow,  mid  paced  and  fast  parts  along  with  the  slower  sections  of  the  songs  also  adding  in  elements  of  sludge  and  doom  metal.


  All  of  the  musical  instruments  on  the  recording  also  have  a  very  powerful  sound  to  them  along  with  the  songs  also  adding  in  a  decent  mixture  of  slow,  mid  paced  and  fast  parts.  Death  metal  growls  can  also  be  heard  at  times  as  well  as  a  great  portion  of  the  tracks  also  being  very  long  and  epic  in  length.


Melodies  are  also  added  into  some  of  the  guitar  riffing  as  well  as  some  songs  also  adding  in  war  samples  and  spoken  word  parts  along  with  a  later  track  also  adding  in  folk  music  touches, acoustic  guitars,  stringed  instruments  and  clean  vocals  before  returning  back  to a  heavier  direction.  The  production  sounds  very  professional  while  the  lyrics  cover  The  History  of  World  War  1.


  In  my  opinion  this  is  another  great  sounding  recording  from  1914  and  if  you  are  a  fan of  black,  sludge,  doom  and  death  metal,  you  should  check  out  this  album.  RECOMMENDED  TRACKS  INCLUDE  "Vimy  Ridge  (In  Memory  of  Flip  Konowal)"  "Coward"  and  "The  Green  Fields  Of  France".  8  out  of  10.


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https://youtu.be/_S2SpTNuglQ          

Sunday, October 21, 2018

1914/The Blind Leading The Blind/Redefining Darkness Records/Archaic Sound/2018 Full Length Review


  1914  are  a  band  from  Ukraine  that  has  been  featured  before  in  this  zine  and  plays  a  blackened  mixture  of   death, sludge  and  doom  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  2018  album  "The  Blind  Leading  the  Blind"  which  will  be  released  in  November  as  a  joint  effort  between  Redefining  Darkness  Records  and  Archaic  Sound.

  Music  samples  from  the  world  war  era  start  off  the  album  before  going  into  a  heavier  direction  while  the  faster  sections  of  the  songs  also  bring  in  a  decent  amount  of  tremolo  picking  and  blast  beats  along  with  the  riffs  also  utilizing  a  lot  of  melody  and  the  vocals  are  a  mixture  of  death  metal  growls  and  black  metal  screams.

  Elements  of  sludge  and  doom  metal  are  added  into  the  slower  sections  of  the  music  while  some  of  the  tracks  are  very  long  and  epic  in  length  along  with  the  songs  also  bringing  in  a  great  mixture  of  slow,  mid  paced  and  fast  parts  as  well  as  all  of  the  musical  instruments  having  a  very  powerful  sound  to  them.

  Spoken  word  and  war  samples  can  also  be  heard  on  some  of  the  other  tracks  while  the  guitar  solos  and  leads  when  they  are  utilized  they  are  done  in  a  very  melodic  style  and  the  also  bring  in  a  cover  of  The  Exploited's  "Beat  The  Bastards",  as  the  album  progresses  acoustic  guitars  can  also  be  heard  briefly.

  1914  creates  another  recording  that  remains  true  to  their  blackened  mixture  of  sludge,  doom  and  death  metal,  the  production  sounds  very  professional  while  the  lyrics  cover  World  War 1  themes.

  In  my  opinion  this  is  another  great  sounding  album  from  1914  and  if  you  are  a  fan  of  black,  death,  sludge  and  doom  metal,  you  should  check  out  this  album.  RECOMMENDED  TRACKS  INCLUDE "Arrival.  The  Meuse-Argonne"  'Beat  the  Bastards"  and  "The  Hundred  Days  Offensive".  8  out  of  10.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2017

1914 Interview


 1.Can you give us an update on what is going on with the band these days?

Hi. Right now we planned some gig in Ukraine and EU, we`re announced at the biggest Baltic extreme metal festival - Kilkim Žaibu this summer and signed with big EU booking agency (they will announce us soon) and together we will plan our tour in Europe
And, of course, we’re creating a new songs for upcoming album. Five out of seven planned - almost ready. So I hope we release our second LP at this fall.
Oh, we have found a new drummer, and he is great.


2.How would you describe the musical sound of the current music?

Less metal - more despair and pain)) It slowed down, became monolithic and angrier. I think that new songs received a little bit more of death metal and sludge influence. And it`s heavy as all hell
And it’s neither about politics, nor about propaganda or other bullshit stuff – it’s just war, trenches, fear, hopelessness and endless death around of you

3.With the song lyrics and band name the concept is about World War I, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in this war?

Over 10 years ago I went into war archaeology, actually WW1 archeology.  I love this war, this history, uniforms, weapons, armament, stories about battles, and the fate of soldiers. I am a real fan of Great war. Here in Ukraine there were many battles of Great War – Brusilov`s offensive, Carpathian winter operation, Galician battle.
Therefore, I dug up dead soldiers - skeleton, with uniform, weapon, ammo, with all the stuff and wrote songs about their fate, about their silent death. Feelings. His fear.
I’ve always been inspired by this theme. I love films, books, stories, artifacts of this war.
When you dig up a soldier, who died here 100 years ago and laid in the mud – it is a strange feeling. When you look at these bones that were human once, with all human’s stuff - love, feelings, hope, maybe stamp collection, whose parents were waiting at home, you think – why and for what did he die? I had no answer. But all these things inspire me.

4.Recently Mazzar released your 2015 album and 2016 ep as a compilation, what are your thoughts on the final product?

It`s was a really great idea to collaborate with Mazzar and I hope we will keep it going for a long time. They did a huge work to promote us, help us with some gigs, created an awesome merch and actually a fucking great digipack with all our stuff.
Awesome art, awesome product interesting for fans (I hope so)
So I`m really glad that we found each other


5.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?

Actually the best shows I thinks were gigs in Uzhgorod and Zaxid fest. First – good one oldschool gig in underground club, with a lot of fans, stagediving, slam and all this stuff, Zaxid – biggest UA festival with all sort of music, although we looked a bit weird there, but we found many new fans and played on a big stage with great sound.
About performance – we use a lot of things to create an atmosphere of Great war – sounds of war, hymn samples, sounds of machineguns, etc., speeches between songs about this part of history, old and rare video footage from WW1, use a real working Mosin–Nagant rifle as custom microphone stand. And we do it great, interesting, with expression.


6.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?

Yeah I described it in a first question)


7.Recently you did a cover of Nirvana's "Something In The Way", what was the decision behind doing your own version of this song?

When I was teenager I loved Nirvana and this song. For many peoples this song boring (as a Nirvana)). But for me – it’s about fate, what you cannot change. Maybe later – if there will be any later. So when I read books about battle of Somme – in text I found some soldiers words about tanks (don’t remember exactly, but something like this) – We saw it and it was hell, big, loud, with fire and smoke, something in the way, maybe death. And I remembered it – something in the way, death, battle of Somme. After years it came up from my memory and I said to guys – hey common let’s try do this song like our version about battle of Somme. So we did.


8.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of black, doom and death metal?

I didn't expect such interest from all around the world to our band. A lot of people write us from France, Belguim, USA, Germany about our music with thanks, with greetings.
Album has over two hundreds reviews out of all world so far – from Australia, Iceland, from Brazil, Poland, Germany, Greece, Norway, from Russia and USA and so on. Many thanks from guys that in theme of Historical reenactment, and even French historian, who writes about Great war in metal music, wrote about us and used our texts. It`s awesome I think.

9.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

My goal is to tell the whole world about Great War, to all metal heads, to all military fans. Tell this part of history to all who can hear it.
How can we do that?
Of course at big festivals in EU and maybe USA, good promotion, via tours and gigs as much as we can, collaboration with big labels like Nuclear blast, Peaceville or Metal blade. And, of course – good music and stories from us. From all dead soldiers of Great War


10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your newer music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

About music that I listen to and about influence – it will be a long list from Japanese noise to grindcore, from true BM to old school rap, from hardcore punk to industrial, electronic, death, doom, sludge, stoner, post-rock. Actually, I am a big fan of Misfits, Exploited, Paradise lost, Obituary, Asphyx, Merzbow, Einstürzende Neubauten, Black flag and all oldschool hardcore punk, death, true black metal from early 90`s and noise\industrial from 70-80`s. I fucking love japan noise and some british and scandinavian bands like Nordvargr, Dead Voices On Air, Cremation Lily. About now - interesting music for me – atmospheric black or Cascadian post black, some electronic bands like Gost, Carpenter Brut or Zombie Hyperdrive. A lot of awesome music we can have today and it`s great.






11.What are some of your non musical interests?

All simple, first of all for me – books. I am a fan of anthropology, evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology and paleogenetics. So I collected a some good works in this themes. I am a fan of Sci-fi (Asimov, Clarke, Zelazny, Anderson, Simak, Harrison, Bester, Heinlein etc) and have all their books. And of course war memoirs and history books. I fucking love history))
I’m collecting, of course, war archeology and military items, I have a lot of artifacts from Great War.
In addition, aquariums. Actually all our musicians have them and loving it.




12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

Something in the way, people, something in the way)) And this is 1914.

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Monday, December 19, 2016

1914/Eschatology Of War/Fur Kaiser,Volk And Vaterland//Mazzar Records/2016 Double Review


  1914  are  a  band  from  Ukraine  that  plays  a  blackened  mixture  of  sludge  and  doom  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  2015  album  "Eschatology  Of  War"  and  their  2015  ep  "Fur Kaiser,Volk And Vaterland  which  where  released  by  Mazzar Records  as  a  double  album compilation.

  World  War  I  era  music  samples  start  off  the  album  and  after  the  intro  the  music  starts  going  into  more  of  a  heavier  sludge  metal  direction while  also  bringing  in  a  decent  amount  of  melody  as  well  as  a  great  amount  of  black  metal  screams  and  the  solos  and  leads  also  have  a  very  melodic  direction  to  them.

  Death  metal  growls  can  also  be  heard  at  times  and  the  songs  are  also  very  heavily  influenced  by  doom  metal  and  blast  beats  along  with  tremolo  picking  can  also  be  heard  briefly  when  the  music  speeds  up  and  war  music  samples  also  make  a  return  in  certain  sections  of  the  recording and  there  is  also  a  brief  use  of  clean  guitars.

  Some  of  the  songs  along  with  a few  tracks  being  very  long  and  epic  in  length  and  a  couple  of  song  also  brings  in  a small  amount  of  melodic  singing  and  female  vocals while  spoken  word  parts  are also  utilized  at  times  on  the  ep  tracks  which  also  consists  of  2014  demo  and  remix  tracks  which  also  bring  in  industrial and  video  game  music  elements  and  there  is  also  a  cover  of  Nirvana's  "Something  In  the  Way"  which  also sounds  nothing  like  the  original  version.

  1914 plays  a  musical  style  that  takes  black,  death,  doom  and  sludge  metal  and  mixes them  together  to  create  a  sound  of  their  own,  the  production  sounds  very  powerful  while  the  lyrics  cover  World  War I,  trench  warfare,  gas  attacks  and  despair  of  battlefields  themes.

  In  my  opinion  1914  are  a  very  great  sounding  mixture  of  black,  death,  doom  and  sludge  metal  and  if  you  are  a  fan  of  those  musical  genres,  you  should  check  out this  band.  RECOMMENDED  TRACKS  INCLUDE  "Gasmask"  "Caught  in  the  Crossfie"  and  "Battlefield".  8  out  of  10. 

https://x1914x.bandcamp.com/