Impaled Nazarene - Ugra Karma (1993)

   Finnish black metal was always more aggressive than the traditional Norwegian scene of the genre, and they've oriented into  a different direction since the beginning.
   One of the earliest infamous Finnish black metal bands was Impaled Nazarene, who even turned directly against the atmospheric Norwegian tendencies, that gave very high importance to the externals and to the background concept. By their extremely aggressive and bestial style, the band practically accomplished the exaggerated requirements that their rivals, only theoretically fulfilled by comparsion. The band completely skipped the strong atmospheric effects and sizzling demo-like sound, and operated with clear and brutal sound instead. "Ugra Karma" is a riff-centric album that refers back to thrash metal roots, but shows a forward step the same time both in themes and lyrical concept. It's not only about Anti-Christianity, satanism, or slumbering dark powers, but sacrilege on insane level by involving war, apocalypse and even Hindu references. Therefore their main concept is closer to black/death or to the style of Marduk than to ordinary black metal. To add a remix song too gave a new perspective, and could took as a starting hint to industrial black metal, that style mix appeared much later. These made the album far more diverse than most of it's coetaneuses in this style. The excellence of "Ugra Karma" lies partly on this, and partly on it's harsh sound. It was probably the most brutal and genuine early releases of the genre.