Nine Covens - ...on the Dawning of Light
It seems anonymity is the new black. The concealed-identity trend is spreading like wildfire, as every time you open a magazine there’s a new band of shrouded miscreants on the scene. Ghost, The Devil, Dragged Into Sunlight, etc. Knowing who’s in the band is so 2011. Now, with the UK’s Nine Covens, we actually have anonyMetal’s first supergroup… we think. An audacious concept to say the least, it’s alleged that the members of Nine Covens are comprised of “luminaries” within the UK Black Metal movement. So… let’s see… good British Black Metal bands… Umm… Winterfylleth, of course. Can’t forget about Fen. Umm… is Wodensthrone from England? I guess if I don’t know then… Umm… Winterfylleth… oh wait, said that one already. Can’t think of any other… Oh well, I guess we’ll have to take their word for it. It’s really of little importance, because …on the Dawning of Light is a fairly unremarkable exercise in middle-of-the-road Black Metal. You’d expect more from unknown famous people. No wonder nobody wanted to put their name on it! It’s pretty apparent right off the bat that this probably is members of Winterfylleth —at the very least this has to be Chris Naughton on vocals— the only problem being the music here severly lacks Winterfylleth’s passion, majesty, and atmosphere. It isn’t terrible, but it’s about as memorable as your first steps. The melodies are there, the blasting is there, and it should go without saying that the vocals are top-notch, but comparatively speaking it’s a mere Second Wave rehash. Really no need to microwave collective bits of Immortal, Dissection, Satyricon, and Naglfar when the original material itself is so timeless. Where Nine Covens excels is on slower, more mournful jams like “The Mist of Death” and “White Star Acception” —the latter unfortunately being an instrumental— but even these songs are forgotten the second they’re over. Closer “A Burning Ember” definitely sounds like a throwaway cut from The Threnody of Triumph sessions, further cementing my suspicion. Then again, who really knows for sure? And as far as an album of well-played but boring filler is concerned, who really cares?
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