Illness - Hailing the 90's Cult

ILLNESS - Hailing the 90's Cult (PUTRID CULT - CD 2022)

It's been few years now, since I've heard anything from Illness. I think that last recording, which I had a chance to hear was "Trvmna" EP. This time Putrid Cult decided to unleash their newest EP with an intriguing title "Hailing the 90's Cult". This title says everything about the content of the EP and what sort of black metal you should expect from Illness. And in case you're imbecile, there's a short note about this material inside the digipak: "this stuff is dedicated to the early 90's Polish and Norwegian black metal...". Everything is deeply rooted and influenced by the old cults, so expect the music to sound traditional as possible. From the harsh production to the riffage and general dark and obscure atmosphere of the music - it is all there, reminding Emperor demo, Gorgoroth debut, Hades debut... It is all simplistic, it is fairly predictable and maybe nothing special. Yet, I think it's just cool to hear such old school black metal, because not many bands still play such. Probably partly because no one will ever be as good as those old bands twenty years ago, I assume. Anyway, Illness did really well here. This EP has everything what I would look for in such music and I am glad that the music doesn't sound like a self parody of the style. Especially “The Stars Turned Black as Night” sounds excellent, this song perfectly captures the essence of black metal. Besides, both covers featured on the EP give a lot of joy, especially the choice of "Dark Triumph" is brilliant, because who would expect it? Haaaa, I remember that back in the lateish 90's I had a project with a friend and we also played a lot of demo songs from Behemoth demos. We loved "From the Pagan Vastlands". Old memories. All in all, Illness came up with pretty damn interesting and enjoyable EP. I can sincerely recommend it. Shame though that the digipak is so minimalistic. 

Verdict: 75/100