Dolorvotre - Dolorvotre (2011)

Band: Dolorvotre
Country: California, USA
Style: Black Metal
Label: Crepusculo Negro

Since I've only recently begun to explore what's being labeled as the Black Twilight Circle, I've found that each group, or project, has a uniquely distinct, yet primal sound. This is the debut release from Dolorvotre, one of the newest additions to the Circle. I've heard nothing but good things for this release, and having had this for a little while already, I might as well see what all the hype was for.

If you want your black metal of a high production level that's above even modern demo quality, you better look elsewhere. What you'll find on here takes me back to the sound of early Darkthrone records where it was all about atmosphere and the intention was to make this as natural sounding as possible, and that's what you'll get on here. Essentially, one could call this demo quality, but once again, not the modern kind. Beyond that raw factor, the clarity is still very prominent as pretty much everything, except the bass sometimes, can be heard easily, including the effects used. Probably my only real quarrel with the production on here would be for the track Carrion of Immortality, but only because it the track seems to fade in and out throughout it's seven minutes, which proved to be quite annoying and distracting.

While I find the music to be extremely well performed and structured, I found that the vocals were a bit too high up in the mix. Often times the guitars were playing some really good melodies, hear tracks like Worship Black Twilight or , and the vocals would just come in on top of them and sort of intrude, not ruin mind you, but rather distract. Personally, I enjoyed the rawness factor on here, the feedback that comes out often in here really gives it a natural and live feeling that I don't often get from black metal with a higher style of production. The interludes on here really do something different than a lot of interludes in my opinion, they sound like they belong on a long-lost 50s horror movie soundtrack rather than a black metal album, but it is certainly different.

Overall, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit and look forward to even more listenings with it. Despite it's flaws in production, which is just my personal taste so whatever, I'm sure a lot of other people would call this production perfect for this album. If you like black metal, the old-school way, definitely check this out.
Overall Score: 8
Highlights: Brilliant Brightness, Worship Black Twilight, Treasure of Sin