Vehemency As I have lately heard a lot of new metal releases that are heavily compressed and polished to maximum, it’s such a pleasure to put on a, say, Countess album. Rather weak guitar sound, cheap programmed drums, none effects on vocals, and generally nothing fancy at all. But what Countess still has is real enthusiasm, still kicking good after almost 20 years and with a very minimum fanbase.

Burning Scripture, his 12th album, continues in the certain vein of mixing traditional heavy metal elements into Bathory inspired black metal. In the midst of fast-paced black metal, almost every song has its mid-tempo epic moments including some lead guitar melodies (and solos!) and synths. This sort of climaxes are best experienced in ”A Poet’s Parry” and ”The Mad Pharaoh”. While the songs are generally chorus-based and many choruses are actually very close to some other tracks (hear the similarity in ”Chariots of Thunder" and the title-track), there are songs such as ”History Not Forgotten” and ”Worship Forbidden” that don’t rely on a recurring chorus.

The quality of Burning Scripture’s song structures is something I was a bit surprised of, actually. A fast listening says that it’s very general black / heavy metal but taking a more careful look at such songs as ”A Curse Upon the King” and "The Mad Pharaoh" tells that Orlok has put some serious effort into song writing. Before the epic album ending ”Blood of Our Gods” there is also a Manowar cover of which original version I haven’t heard, but at least this cover version fits to the style of Burning Scripture very well.

The album also includes two unmentioned bonus tracks that have originally appeared on previous albums ”The Revenge of the Horned One Part I” and ”Heilig Vuur” (thus making this album’s length over 70 minutes), now most likely recorded anew and based on them I have to check out those albums too. All the lyrics are in the booklet and all in all Burning Scripture is a great album - I can’t find a moment when I wouldn’t enjoy it. Definitely not anything ground-breaking but still one of this year’s highlights so far.

Vehemency In some respect, The Return of the Horned One is an improvement from the debut album - at least when it comes to production and overall execution. The sound is still messy but this time the instruments are more in balance. This is also the first album where Countess utilizes programmed drums, which has now become a standard element in his music. And I don’t even despise them, because they actually fit into the hissing and scruffy atmosphere, just the way Evil used programmed drums in the 90s too.

Compositionally, The Return of the Horned One is quite close to its predecessor, but this time the music is more listenable. Surely the album still lacks power: for example, some palm-muted riffs in ”Fire and Blood” are on the verge of a joke. Also, the guitar riffs are sometimes totally out of place in respect of the drums (”The Wolf Cries Evil”, for example). I wouldn’t call this whole sloppiness a totally welcome feature, but somehow I don’t mind it that much because I focus on the atmosphere, which, in turn, is good with its mysterious aura.

Highlights of The Return... include ”Ritual of the 7 Priests”, the majestic ”Deisidaimonia” and the album ending song, sung in Dutch, ”Bloed In De Sneeuw” which, with its acoustic guitars, gives me vibes from the early Carpathian Forest material (Journey Through the Cold Moors of Svarttjern). And why not to mention the short interlude with clean vocals, ”Since Man Has Wielded Swords”. This second album had potential to be better than its predecessor, but it simply doesn’t have enough strong material, except the previously mentioned songs. Thus I would say that The Legion... and The Return... are actually on the same line.

Vehemency According to the Countess head Orlok, the debut album The Gospel of the Horned One was purposely made to sound as bad as possible. However, it is not noisy exactly, it is just recorded and mixed poorly. Nonetheless, The Gospel of the Horned One provides some great songs which some people might consider even legendary. Countess has never reached a big follower base, so the term legendary is a bit subjective, of course.

The guitar tone is pretty weak, the drums are distant somewhere in the background and the bass is quite powerless. But in a way this is what makes The Gospel of the Horns an interesting album, because even if the production is what it is, the compositions - no matter how sloppy played - are still audible and enjoyable. The music is often mid-tempo but there’s some faster songs such as ”Doomed to Die”. Synths appear every now and then, also. If we want to compare the album to something, Bathory and Hellhammer could be mentioned as clear influences.

The highlights of the album reside near the end: ”Under the Sign of the Celtic Cross” has a great and surprisingly catchy guitar riff throughout it and ”Kneel Before the Master’s Throne” is a cult legendary song from the band that they have almost always included in the live set as the last song. I wouldn’t call The Gospel of the Horned One a total masterpiece, but it’s a good album of more-or-less traditional black metal, released as early as 1993 which says something already.