Review by Ben for Immortal - Pure Holocaust (1993)

Pure Holocaust indeed! Extremely cold black metal the way it was intended.

It has always been rather difficult for me to listen to Immortal without having images of a whacked-up Popeye on vocals, knocking back cans of spinach in between each track. While you'd think that this image might ruin all atmosphere and darkness that this album would otherwise contain, I seem to be able to get over it long enough to enjoy what is a legendary album in the black metal genre. Pure Holocaust is a perfectly fitting title for this release as most of it moves at a relentless speed. Even when the rhythm section slows down a tad, Abbath continues his double bass kicking and blast beating as if the guy simply couldn't stop if he wanted to.

Immortal may have been hugely influenced by Mayhem, but they certainly added their own flavour to the genre. The Viking battle element in the lyrics and song titles is matched by the cold, epic feel in Demonaz's riffs. Immortal have always known how to create an extremely icy atmosphere and it's there in spades on Pure Holocaust. Despite my comments earlier, I think Abbath's vocals, no matter how silly they may appear to outsiders, are frickin’ awesome and perfectly suited to Immortal's sound. As mentioned earlier, his drumming is powerful and relentless, but it must be said that it's also a bit messy at times. Quite often I am distracted by a slightly out of time beat here or there that the band clearly didn't care about at the time of the recording.

Flaws aside, Pure Holocaust is a great example of black metal played the way it was intended. Raw, aggressive, and damn cold. Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss is one the greatest tracks the band ever put out (even though unsilent just isn't a word, nor would you ever consider a storm to be silent in the first place) and A Sign for the Norse Hordes to Ride isn't far behind. While there will always be those that do not understand why this album is so good, I recommend anyone that likes their black metal extreme to go check this out. Here's hoping the reformed Immortal will head back into the studio shortly.