Vehemency
Along with Graveland’s debut album ”Carpathian Wolves”, ”Night on the Bare Mountain” by Veles - also their debut album - is undoubtedly a classic album and showcases the power of the early Polish black metal scene. I find it weird how obscure this album is considering the high quality of the music, not to even mention the early release year, preceding many similar albums released in the upcoming years. Albeit being rather unknown, it has clearly influenced some of the more popular black metal acts from the 2000s, so I don’t think I lie if I say that ”Night on the Bare Mountain” is a very influential black metal record even from an objective point of view.
Veles plays hateful but also romantic black metal with folkish leanings. At times, such as on ”The Winter Morning”, the music is furious and evil, while tracks like the 2-minute interlude ”The Final Battle” reveal the more emotional side of Veles. All the tracks are rather short, usually below 5 minutes, but consist of relatively many varying sections. Some melodies, such as the the main riffs of ”My Bloodthirst (The Horrorstorm”), I consider to be legendary and one of the best composed in the field of black metal. Production-wise, ”Night on the Bare Mountain” is considerably clean, every instrument is audible and the overall full sound makes the album a very enjoyable listen. Rob Darken’s bombastic synths are sometimes very much on the top (”Majesty of War”) but it only enhances their power. The instruments are executed in a slightly sloppy manner, making it only a more organic sounding whole - I’m not looking for professional studio musicians if I want to hear a soundtrack to some rough battlegrounds.
”Night on the Bare Mountain” is very close to a perfect black metal album and thus I see no reason not to give it five stars. On a very few occasions Veles goes astray from their path to a perfect record (some moments on ”My Pagan Fatherland (Evil Power’s Night) aren’t as good as the rest of the album, but remembering that the other material is almost flawless) but it doesn’t kill the fact that ”Night on the Bare Mountain” is a masterpiece. Fans of early Graveland and the Polish scene overall, do not miss this like I did for a long time. Others into black metal will probably find this enjoyable, too, considering the relatively clean production and versatile compositional work.