CoC : Sad Legend - Sad Legend : Review

Sad Legend - _Sad Legend_
(Hammerheart, 1998)
by: Paul Schwarz (7.5 out of 10)

Hammerheart are always digging up various musical graveyards to bring us some truly underground stuff, and they've done it again with this Korean black metal band. Though not a phenomenal band, either in their originality or skill, Sad Legend are talented at both writing chunky, melodic black metal tunes and interweaving their "Korean Traditional Music" into these black metal tunes. In fact, nearly all of this album was played by one member, Naamah, but it strangely does not suffer from the concentration-on-one-instrument syndrome which so many albums conceived in these conditions have. All instruments amply play their respective roles in bestowing _Sad Legend_ with a somewhat individual character and certainly make it a pleasant, if not entirely invigorating, 40 minutes. The band's production is great, unflawed by the tendency bands have to go for "that raw sound" (or to just not have the money to afford more than a tape player to record their stuff on). Overall, a very promising debut coming from an unusual source.

(article published 19/11/1998)