Cask Strength Black Metal
Reissue of the Sheath And Knife, Grand Ravishing Extravaganza, Sevenfold Songs Of Death and Sturmfuckinglieder CD-R EPs. Remastered by Weasel Walter. Released in two formats: as a triple LP box set on Weird Forest and as a double CD on Supernal Music. This collects all the black metal recordings of DEAD RAVEN CHOIR from 2001 through 2004. Here's Weird Forest's description:
The most insane black metal release ever !!! Three, yes three vinyl lps of the harshest sounding evil, atmospheric off-kilter black metal. Call it black metal folk. The loudest noisest crazy insane sounding blasts of skree with strange folky melodic undertones of banjo, cello, mandolin, and percussions and the most frightening vocals ever dared to be recorded. Many traditional folk songs shrouded in blasts of white noise armageddon. For fans of twisted, unique, raw black metal with a very bent edge. Pray (no, commit ritual sacrifice) to the underworld that your stereo survives! This release compiles the "Sturmfucklinglieder", "Grand Ravishing Extravaganza", "Sevenfold Songs Of Death", and "Sheath And Knife" EPs, all previously released in very small pressings and all long, long gone!

Sheath And Knife
Hej Sokoły
Sawney Beane
The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime
Sawney Bean
Kamień Na Kamieniu
Czarne Oczy
Maryna
Złociste Chryzantemy
Elijah
Siadła Muszka
Die
Die
Die
Die
Die
Die
Die!
Sevenfold Song Of Death
Lots Of Booze And Lots Of Rambling In A Sea Of Steam And Poison Light Bathe In Fiery Answers And Fill The Spinning Sky Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons
First We Take Manhattan
Stormfront
Lungs
Waiting Around To Die
Highway Kind

Reviews

Blodarstid
June 5, 2007
Here we have a double-CD collection of "black metal" EP's (originally released between 2001 and 2004) from this curious, ever-atypical, and extremely prolific one-man Polish artist… who was living in the US when most - if not all - of this material was originally released. The EP's in question were all originally issued as CD-R's in extremely limited editions and appear here in chronological order: "Sheath and Knife" (2001), "Grand Ravishing Extravaganza" (2002), "Sevenfold Songs of Death" (2003), and "Sturmfuckinglieder" (2004). "Sheath and Knife" was actually my first exposure to Dead Raven Choir around six years ago, and I can specifically remember not liking it at the time. Admittedly it fares only marginally better these days, as it really does play out more like harsh noise accompanied by the distant, distorted sneers and snarls of a black metal vocal approach - occasionally graced with hints of riffs/melody (most notably in "The Young Girl Cut Down in Her Prime"). It's definitely hard on the ears as the crackling distortion is thin and acerbic, which makes things quite loud and a bit overbearing, but certain moments do possess enough atmosphere and feeling to really bear some promise. And much of that promise comes to light on "Grand Ravishing Extravaganza" - which takes this noisy, blown out, and distorted attack and reins it in a bit, adding in some tangible black metal riffs as well as some of the ultra raw acoustic folk for which Dead Raven Choir is perhaps better known. The vocal performance on this EP also reaches a greater level of prominence - which accents Smolken's unique inflection and enunciation - and is very effective in terms of expressing a seething sense of aggression and intensity. "Sevenfold Songs of Death" continues in a similar vein, perhaps somewhat refined in that its recording techniques allow all of the elements to mesh together into somewhat of a humming drone. The vocals aren't quite as crisp or pronounced as they were on "Grand Ravishing Extravaganza", falling farther back in the mix alongside the instrumentation as well as the noisy, humming effects/resonance lingering throughout, so… this is a slightly more one-sided and consistent listen, though not quite as interesting as " Grand Ravishing…" as a result. And finally, "Sturmfuckinglieder", which continues in a similar direction in terms of achieving a droning sort of pulse through the density of its production values and the crude noisiness of the presentation - which seems to include an incessantly blasting drum machine on many occasions. Despite its only faintly recognizable sense of "rhythm", I'm not fond of the drum machine as it distracts from the vocals and music (this treatment was present during portions of "Grand Ravishing…" and "Sevenfold…" as well, but it was far subtler and therefore not a distraction), which actually seems to be a hint more involved on this outing due to the presence of some slightly faster tempos and more energetic melodies - perhaps due to the fact that the six tracks are all "covers" of folk songs written by Leonard Cohen, Garner Rogers, and Townes van Zandt. Overall the quality of this rather hefty collection does vary, with "Grand Ravishing Extravaganza" the highlight, but Dead Raven Choir has always been an odd and unpredictable beast whose material is always worth investigating. And given the current crop of "black metal" acts taking a crack at what practically amounts to experimental noise, one can't help but wonder how many of them may have borrowed at least some of their aesthetic aspirations from Dead Raven Choir's truly unique delivery (like it or not, you can't argue its inventiveness) on these early EP's… though I'm sure we'll never know…

Kid Shirt
February 23, 2007
Had this pernicious little triple album-box for a year or so now, but only just noticed that for some strange reason I'd hoarded the plastic vacuum-wrap, which is spectacularly anal, even by my standards.
Fellow bloggers such as Loki have mentioned the Dead Raven Choir releases on Jewelled Antler , but over the years DCR has moved away from its original vision-statement of "creepy, barbaric folk" into more metallic, er, waters. DCR's own website describes the music as follows: "...a horrid blight upon Black Metal and does great damage to credible Black Metal artists everywhere. Or perhaps it's keeping Black Metal alive and interesting. DEAD RAVEN CHOIR doesn't care which it is, just plays excessively harsh Black Metal covers of country and folk songs. The instrumentation is built around bowed bass fiddle, distorted bass guitar, drums and screams."
Yeah, like the fabulous Funeral Folk guys (huuuge post n interview soon, I promise!) DCR exist at some unlikely interface between Folk and Metal.
Hmmm, okay, "Cask Strength" may be slightly misleading. Perhaps "Casket Strength" might be a better term as these tracks are soaked in a dark, blood-splattered cowl of 'guitar' muzzzzz. No explicit rhythmic pulse on most of these tracks...instead, a sort of spidery, hi-end, shattered-glass gauze of gtr treble hangs over the mix. Smolken's vocals are surprisingly accessible; they have the smokey (cask-matured?) cracked-varnish burnish of, say, Alice Cooper after a packet of Benson & Hedges and a bottle of brandy (rather than a round of golf). At points, the fracktured remnants of the melody-line of some forgotten trad. East European drinking song or wedding march leaks thru the layers of fuzz and it starts to sound like a distant relative of Eugene Hutz who never got out of Kiev and who grew up listening to tape boots of Celtic Frost. Anyway, it sounds murky and gleefully raw; far less heavy than you probably think it does. I'm not saying it's easy listening, but it will prob. appeal to all the closet middle-aged Goffs out there who wanna impress their teenage kids with how 'dark' they are.
The box contains a bunch of tasty black n white photographic prints of tangled undergrowth, thickets, clumps of thorns, etc wh/ is a nice way of roping-in & updating that whole lost-in-the-dark-woods fairy-tale psychosexual thing, not to mention East European Catholic Guilt/Orthodox Ikonography...it's a short jump from The Brothers Grimm to Grim Metal. Like Prurient, Smolken is also fond of the word 'Grim' wh/ interests me, as he comes from Poland originally, so I'm guessing English wasn't his first language...has the word 'Grim' somehow evolved out of a language-specific context into a Global Metal Meta-Context?

Terminal Boredom
Winter 2006
Author: SSR
When my friend Larry gave me this three record set (previously released on CDRs) he said. "It is supposed to be Black Metal but it sounds like Caroliner to me." Giving these things a spin, I can hear both Black Metal and Caroliner (which, in case you are wondering, sounds like ancient country western music played by free jazz corpses), but I also hear sea chanteys, flamenco, Irish drinking songs, Gypsy ballads, etc. all coated in sheets of static and with vocals so possessed they make Venom sound like a bunch of muppets. The dementia here is palatable, very much in the same psychic vein as Rudimentary Peni's 'Cacophony.' Twisting guitars, damaged bass, tortured cello, broken keys, and instruments like banjos and mandolins do things that their designers never intended. And there are no drums here, which is something that I didn't notice until half way through record number three. This is psychedelia in the truest sense of the word, the logical step from Cro Magnon's 'Orgasm' LP. This is a remarkable collection of music.

Aquarius Records
December 9, 2005
Dead Raven Choir, a one man band, now living in Poland, formerly of Texas, purveyor of damaged free folk, abstract strum and of course utterly grim black metal. We tried desparately to keep up with his non stop cd-r release schedule and his constant flitting from folk to metal and back again, sometimes pausing beautifully right in between, a gnarled hybrid of campfire twang and lo-fi buzz, then there's Wolfmangler too, his country doom outfit! But, as is often the case, most of those cd-r's disappeared in no time flat. So it's Weird Forest to the rescue, compiling 4 LONG out of print cd-r's (Sheath & Knife, Grand Ravishing Extravaganza, Sevenfold Songs Of Death, and Sturmfuckingleider) onto three lps and packaging them in this "dark forest-clad" box. This one is definitely for the true, the grim, the cult, this is utterly dismal, freaked out and fuzzed out lo-fi black metal. But while sonically it may fit somewhere between the foresty buzz of early Ulver, the midtempo droning hypno plod of Burzum, and the thrashy blur of Darkthrone, this is Dead Raven Choir after all, so beneath and amidst all the buzzing and riffing, there are plenty of banjos, mandolins, and lots of percussion, a creepy clattery folk undercurrent, albeit all bathed in hiss and drone and distortion, black metal folk may be more accurate, closer in feel to Abruptum, a black pagan ritual, shrill and noisy and harsh and HEAVY, but in that home-recorded, perfectly underproduced way. Awesome!
This comes packaged in a printed black box, the three lps are housed in thick black sleeves, there are seven inserts, beautifully printed on thick vellum, with liner notes in perhaps the most illegible black metal font EVER!

De Subjectivisten
Author: Martin ter Haar
Tsja, The Cult Is Alive is nog steeds in backorder. Maar dit meer artistieke verantwoorde werk vergoed veel. Op Cask Strength Black Metal is de volledige blackmetaloutput van Dead Raven Choir verzameld op 3 LP's. Aan de prijzige kant, maar dan heb je ook wel een hele hoop hele vage en hele desolate muziek. Alles ingespeeld op akoestische instrumenten, geen drums, covers van Leonard Cohen en Townes Van Zandt en toch wordt het niet veel zwarter.