Naer Mataron

Pure Black Metal with an heavy Hellenic twist.

 

At Metal Coven we're pleased to announce that the latest release from Greek Black Metal act Naer Mataron, is indeed a wellmade release. The Keywords to this release is simple and harsh. The music is not complex at all - it's very simple and down to earth. The thing that separate Naer Mataron from other black metal bands, is that their lyrics is not about dark winternights, cutting frost and tons of snow on a misty mountain.

The premier source to the lyrics and the Naer Mataron sphere is Greek mythology, which is a rare but quite interesting thing. The mood of the album doesen't vary from other black metal bands, but the content of the lyrics is as said before unique. All bandmembers play their instrument to its best, and this release is a great entyr to the world of hellenic music - when you need it the hard way. Naer Mataron seems to be influenced by bands such as Bathory, Revel Decay, Obituary, Dimmu Borgir og Cryptopsy. The album inaugurate with the track "And Blodshed Must Be Done which is very symphonic and wellbalanced, and with a lot of string players in the background - and they fit in well. I sit and wonder if the song partially is used as an intro to their concerts - it is very suitable for it!

At Metal Coven there's no doubt in our mind: this album is highly recommendable, if you're into plain black metal played the hard way! We wish the best for the album and the band in the future.

The release contain these tracks:

1. And Bloodshed Must Be Done
2. Diastric Fields of War
3. Iketis
4. Skotos Aenaon
5. Astro - Thetis - Cosmos
6. Hyperion
7. Wolf of lons
8. In Honor of the Wolf
9. Winterwar Memorial

For additional info on the band and previous releases, please visit the sites listed below:

www.naermataron.cjb.net or http://stagyro.phpwebhosting.com/hosted/metal/lotus/blrfram.htm

On Hellenic Mythology and Culture, the sites listed below gives good information:

http://www.fhw.gr/ - http://www.hellas.org/ - http://www.greece.org/poseidon/work/argonautika/ - http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/greek/articles.html

If you have never heard of Naer Mataron before, here's a short intro to the band:

Naer Mataron - Pure Hellenic Black Art
NAER MATARON was formed in 1994 as NAR MATARON by Morpheas (Guitars) and Lord Alatoth (Vocals) playing black metal in the old way. After recording the godly "Awakening of ancient greece" demo Kaiadas (Bass) and Lethe (Drums/keyboards) joined and the band got a deal with Black Lotus records. In 1997 the band had some quarrels about Lord Alatoth and after that he left. The band changed it's name to NAER MATARON and Lord Alatoth created NAR MATARON again. This story is quite involved so I will leave it here and concentrate on NAER MATARON. The music sounds a lot like norwegian blackmetal and it´s good as hell! But instead of lyrics dealing with ice, winterdeamons and frosty mountains, Naer Mataron write about ancient Greek gods and European culture. The music has also some 80´s thrash metal influences which suits the other music perfect. the debut cd "Up From The Ashes" which was released in the summer of 1998 is already a Hellenic Black metal classic and one of the better albums in my collection. In the year 2000 their second opus "Skotos Aenaon" was released. It's not as great as their debut but still a very good album. Check them both out...

 

Here's what other mags wrote about this fine release "Skotos Aenaon":

"Lest there were doubts, the corpse paint, the shrouded moon and the pentagram gracing the cover assure us of Naer Mataronıs black metal affiliation. The Greek duo is clearly inspired by the early escapades of their domestic scene and rarely does anything that early Necromantia or Rotting Christ did not realize. The superior and screeched vocals are interspersed with inferior spoken segments and the tempo ranges from mid to fast-paced. There is nothing here that can be classified as bad per se, rather Naer Mataron stick with what has come before and will surely come again. Itıs just that fans would be hard-pressed to pick up Skotos Aenaon (eternal darkness) if they have yet to complete their Darkthrone collection."

"It's good to find out that in Greece "true" bands still exist, who haven't lost yet the evilness of some of their land mates! Naer Mataron are a sensation come from nowhere and unfortunately destined to disappear even faster because of the ignorance and the hipocrisy of many persons who haven't learned yet to distinguish between two fundamental concepts for musicians: the heart and the fakeness, the sweat and the plagiarism, the faith and the superficiality. Naer Mataron equal black, cold, pain, wiseness. Traditionalist and fierce black metal, both in the attitude and in the substance, the true language of death and desperation. Infernal rhytms will remain right next to you in the trip down to the darkest abysses, swett first and violent then, with cutting guitar storms, torturing your souls with evil and aberrating vocals... if you'll listen to this album you'll deserve your Hell for sure. I've no other words to describe this masterpiece, even because who's interested has already understand what I'm talking about. This effort should be proposed as highlight, but it won't end next to the "sacred monsters" for sure... maybe it's better this way. So what should we do? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Let's just taste the art in silence..."