Renown for “rescuing” lost works, the German label introduces a defunct Norwegian outfit who only issued a pair of demos, earlier this decade. In fact, the final four selections are all culled from their 2010 “Reap Of Evil”. All the literature labels these guys speed and/or black metal, when in fact, they were old school heavy metal, proto-thrash at best, with a decidedly NWOBHM streak.

Think early Metal Blade artists mixed with rudimentary Mercyful Fate. Apart from a couple of short atmospheric instrumentals (opening ‘Black Magic’ last 51 seconds, while ‘The Ritual’ clocks in at 1:15), it’s a rough sounding, dichotomous affair (thus the split scores below), with the early tracks more melodic and the later’s gremlin voiced lyrics seemingly recorded in a deep well. Black Magic must have struggled to find/keep a vocalist, as ‘Voodoo Curse’ is a 5:13 instrumental. Would have been interesting to see whether they could have developed the direction inherent on ‘Thunder’ and ‘Death Militia’ into a respectable retro-minded act. However, if they were intent on following the (left hand) pathway found on “Reap Of Evil”, then good riddance.