Hunter's Ground - No God But The Wild

'No God But The Wild' is quite an interesting statement, let alone an album title. Hunter's Ground officially embrace their black metal genre, with such titles as 'A Storm Of Crows', and 'The Fireless Winter' which obviously stink of the black metal label, in an almost boastful - "we don't give a fuck" matter; In which I really fucking love. I've always felt like band's should open up within music and create whatever they want and love, if there's a passion or an inspiration, then get out of bed every morning and fulfil that exact passion with dedication.

Black metal is often frowned upon, and I will openly admit that I'm not the biggest fan, yet I am quite keen for a bit of Emperor every now and then. The blatant differences to Hunter's Ground to the godly kings' Emperor are the up-to-date modern production, yet the sound still reaps that tainted, evil element which is just beefed up a little to give it that twenty-first century token that I believe works well within the album. Three tracks into the album and boredom has not struck me down yet, 'And Fed Their Flesh To The Vultures' initially becomes as nutty as the title reads. Demanding epic riffs that black metal would casually ensue, along with the howling, crackling vocals which echo across the songs, where at times I'm almost imagining an evil wizard booming his voice from the top of an fiery mountain, where lightening and lava bloom into one - basically erupting into one fucking interesting story to go with this style of genre.

Sometimes in the album, there are moments where you can pick out the more rare, beautiful components, such as 'Speaking In The Tongues Of Trees' - In which uses a stunning background of what could be rain falling, combined among epic, yet somehow displeasing strange noises that I'm not entirely sure what instrument is actually being used. The track is appealing, and relevant to the album in it's entirety before belting out the final two tracks which bring back the monstrous sound the album gave birth to in it's early stages.

One thing that really interested me was the band's use of a logo. The logo is a tree with the branches saying 'Hunter's', and the roots saying 'Ground'. I found this highly entertaining to the point where I actually excitedly showed my girlfriend, who just shrugged and continued believing my musical tastes are of the deranged categories. No matter what other people choose to think, I thoroughly enjoyed Hunter's Ground's little album, to the point where I've convinced myself that there's probably more to the black metal world than I originally thought.