Immortal - Pure Holocaust

There's no reason that anything should be as derivative and unoriginal as this album. Let's face it, Pure Holocaust is pretty much black metal for beginners. There's nothing remotely passionate, blackened, or offensive about this album and, despite what the name would suggest, Pure Holocaust is about as evil as the teenager next door blasting dubstep at full volume. Pure Holocaust is more annoying than evil. Why is this so? Because Immortal lack the skills to write proper black metal riffs, that is all. It's no surprise they resort to lifting riffs from Burzum - on Frozen by Icewinds - or from John Williams' Darth Vader theme, The Imperial March - on the title track 'Pure Holocaust'.

Speaking of the title track, it manages to be the worst of all eight songs. Anecdotal, but speaks volume about the absolute train wreck that is Pure Holocaust. The 'best', as in least irritating, track would be either the opener 'Unsilent Storms in the North Abyss' or the shameless Burzum ripoff 'Frozen by Icewinds'. These are the only two decent black metal tracks, nothing to brag about here. At least Abbath doesn't start playing Iron Maiden riffs like on At the Heart of Winter.

Overall, Pure Holocaust is very average black metal at best. There's clearly a reason why Immortal is often overlooked in favour of bands like Burzum and Darkthrone, and that reason is that Immortal's mediocre black metal just isn't interesting.

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