CoC : Troll - Drep De Kristne : Review

Troll - _Drep De Kristne_
(Damnation Records, 1996)
by: Drew Snow (7 out of 10)

Behold, another cold, frosty release for dark souls from the northern lands. Okay, I really shouldn't poke too much fun at Troll's unoriginal image and posing, but it's hard to resist, with an album name such as _Drep De Kristne_ ("Kill the Christian"), two giant pentagrams inside the lush digipak, and a member named Nagash Blackheart. Besides, such stupid image-mongering just takes away from what should be the focal-point of Troll: fairly high-quality, atmospheric black metal. Droll as it is, _DDK_ is a fairly solid attempt, although not bold in terms of originality, with many similarities to Emperor and other purveyors of this rather overcrowded style, with all eight tracks being of the very listenable variety, including two great, ominously foreboding synth instrumentals. However, it's difficult to forgive Troll's unabashed lack of originality, and indeed a little hard to see their role in the future of black metal. In addition, _DDK_ is rather short, at only 36 minutes, so you can decide for yourself if you want to pay the toll. Maybe I'm not the right person to question their motives, but I'm having some problems seeing Troll's goal with _DDK_ as it looks to me like, on the whole, they're much more concerned with appearing like the brave, mighty warriors of the Frosty Desolate Northland that they obviously are than with trying to maybe be a little more creative. With hearts of the blackest coal, Troll have produced a worthy effort, low on creativity and high on derativity, but good nonetheless.

(article published 9/4/1997)

ALBUMS
3/7/2010	N Shahpazov	6.5	Troll - Neo-Satanic Supremacy