Arckanum: Fran Marder (1995)

I have mentioned several times that one of the things that I love about being a metalhead is being able to locate hard-to-find and out-of-print albums because stuff is constantly reissued.  I assume this is at least partially true of other genres, but there are labels whose sole purpose is re-releasing albums that have come before.  Enter Arckanum, a Swedish one-man black metal band whose unpronounceable album ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ caught my attention almost a decade ago.  So, when the band's material was re-issued recently, I started to pick them up.

Fran Marder is the band's debut full-length.  The music bears a slight resemblance to other early Swedish black metal bands, such as Dark Funeral, Dissection and Marduk.  The focus is more on faster, more intense riffing and building a chaotic and evil atmosphere.  The production is extremely impressive, particularly for a mid 90's black metal album.  The structures are mostly simple, built around one or two repeating riffs, but the use of sound effects (particularly stormy weather) gives the album an icy and forbidding feel.

This is an extremely impressive debut for the band.  Of course it is much more raw than some of the later output, but Arckanum got off to the right start.