MÜTIILATION - Black Millenium (Grimly Reborn) CD

Les Legiones Noires return! After four years of silence and speculation the oldest and greatest of the French Black Legions have returned with one of the finest black metal releases of the year, "Black Millenium". The band is now down to sole member Meyhna'ch (now going by his given name, "Wil Roussel"), and at first it seemed that the essence of the band had changed. A big part of the charm of early Mütiilation was the 'live' feel they had by recording on a 4- or 8-track in the rehearsal room, where you could hear the looseness and the room ambience, but the new album has a crisp, clean, digital-sounding recording quality with a plugged-in direct guitar sound and a drum machine. This put me off at first, but after a minute I noticed how sick it all sounds - almost like Wil didn't even bother trying to tweak sounds. The guitar sounds strangled in faster parts and really fuzzy and 'big' in the slower parts - almost over-distorted in a way.