SHINING — The Sinister Alliance (review)

SHINING — The Sinister Alliance album cover Split · 2007 · Depressive Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
The Sinister Alliance is a 3-way split album release by black metal acts Shining, Mrok and Funeral Dirge. The split was released in March 2007 by Old Temple. The Sinister Alliance is only released on CD in 666 hand numbered copies.

There are seven tracks on the split album. The two Shining tracks are taken from their Submit to Self-Destruction (1998) EP, while the two Funeral Dirge tracks are taken from their The Silence Ebony (1999) EP. Both releases are very rare and only pressed in a very limited amount of copies, and while 666 hand numbered copies doesn´t make The Sinister Alliance a much more readily available release, at least it´s a more recent release and a better chance of getting hold of these rare tracks. The two Shining tracks from the Submit to Self-Destruction EP are also featured on the Through Years of Oppression (2004) compilation though. The three Mrok tracks are a bit different than the black metal tracks by Shining and Funeral Dirge. They are placed as an intro, an outro and and an interlude track between the other tracks on the split. All three are ambient atmospheric and rather short tracks. The longest being the interlude track Interlude - Realms of Death. While I probably wouldn´t enjoy an album full of this kind of music, the tracks work very well within the context of The Sinister Alliance. They kind of bind the album together. The two Shining tracks are slow to mid-paced cold black metal tracks. Ultra depressive and with Niklas Kvarforth´s tortured howling vocals on top. The style on the two Funeral Dirge tracks are also quite depressive in sound, but the music isn´t quite as harsh as the Shining tracks. The vocals are on the other hand pretty extreme. They are wildly distorted and sounds very haunting.

The Sinister Alliance works very well for a split release between three acts, as it manages to sound like a complete work instead of a disjointed collection of songs as some split releases do. A 3 star rating is warranted.
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