Review by Rexorcist for Taake - Nattestid ser porten vid... (1999)

Not sure why I didn't get to this album before.  Taake exploration has typically been really on and off for me.  I've always liked his albums well enough, but never really loved them.  But since I heard a few, I guess that obligates me to hear Nattestid ser porten vid.  It's conisder his best by many of his fans, after all, and it IS an influential debut album.

I have to say I have mixed feeling about... the mixing.  It's nice that the Paysage sound that is known for drowning things out creates a noisy, despondent atmosphere, but the issue is that the drumming is way too drowned out, and flows to closely to the sound of a poorly recorded demo in the guise of a studio album, when Paysage's demo was handled LIKE a studio album.  Even when I was on Taake's topic page listening to the official playlist, I thought I landed on a video with bad mixing and that video somehow landed in the topic page by mistake.  But I'm not gonna complain about the compositions.  They were a lot of fun.  There was an ass-ton of energy that was just begging to be released, like a battery is about to explode.  I would even go as far as to say some of these songs are absolutely genius, and thankfully, a couple of them have better mixing for the percussions than others.  The problem is mostly fixed on III, which is flat-out one of the best black metal songs I've ever heard.  The raw ferocity and the incurable rage are on STRIPPER display.  There isn't a lot of variation between tracks, but it remains fun throughout, and ends with an incredible nine-minute bang that almost matches III.

So despite its mixing problem, I would agree with those who say this is his best album.  The mania of the album is enough to drive you insane from metalhead zealousness.  For the most part, Furia certainly knew what he was doing.

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