UMUR
"The Oath of Black Blood" is a compilation album release by Finnish black/death metal act Beherit. The compilation was released through Turbo Music in September 1991. It´s considered Beherit´s debut full-length studio album by many, but that´s not really true. Turbo Music offered Beherit a very small amount of money to record their debut album, which Beherit weren´t able to on such a low budget, and Turbo Music therefore ended up compiling the material from Beherit´s June 1990 "Demonomancy" demo and the material from their February 1991 "Dawn of Satan's Millennium" EP and releasing it as "The Oath of Black Blood".
To my ears those are the two best quality releases from the early part of Beherit´s (also including the demo they released in July 1991 under The Lord Diabolus monicker), so releasing them as a compilation is not a bad idea at all. Beherit did actually record a full-length studio album in 1990, but it was shelved (because of issues with Turbo Music) and didn´t see the light of day until June 2011, where it was picked up for a release by the Kvlt label,
Stylistically Beherit inhabit a territory which touches both black metal and death metal, and they are hard to label just one. It´s harsh, grim, savage, and brutal music packed in suitably raw sounding production values. The material from the "Dawn of Satan's Millennium" EP is slightly more professional sounding, but neither the demo nor the EP material feature what most people would consider professional sound production values. This is pretty lo-fi and murky sounding, but the sound productions suit the material and provide the right gloomy and occult atmosphere for the music. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.