Some time ago I had a brilliant idea for a compilation album. It was to be entitled; Guantánamo Bay, The Collection and the tracks on it should be of the most obscure and sick kind. Artists to be on it should be of course Mike Patton, Sunn 0))), Merzbow John Zorn, and after listening to Nefaria, Striborg would certainly be a competitor for the album. If only I had the money…

The biography for Striborg goes as follows: ‘Initiated in 1994. Ongoing. No contact. No interviews.’ So much for background information then. But I chose to review this album because it is a one-man project by Sin Nanna, who also worked with Sunn 0))). Unfortunately this proved to be more obscure than I can handle, but I’ll see if I can satisfy those few fans of this project with a decent review.

 

What we have here is music where the key issue is obscurity. The album contains new material from this year called Nefaria and the very first album called A Tragic Journey Towards The Light. And it is the sickest, most vile of black metal with no respect for the listener at all. It’s like being spat in the face and bitchslapped afterwards. Nefaria is recorded on an analogue 4-track, and I doubt the first record was done any otherwise. But, I guess there is a bunch of mega obscure black-noise loving psycho’s living in a wooden hut in a  forest at a lake with all kinds of murder victims buried around them who simply worship this guy as much as the devil himself. Or perhaps it's like a world-champion on-line checkers player with a taste for manicures. Who knows?!

 

So the shit sounds crappy, that’s one thing. The songs with an actual band formation, with all the instruments being played by Sin Nanna himself, are not tight, and usually consist of a constant blastbeat and a high shrivelling riff, while an occasional echoing weird scream occurs. Other tracks are evil guitar- and/or synthesizer-soundscapes. That’s about it. Buy it if you have a goat tattooed on your forehead.