Hate Forest - The Most Ancient Ones (2002)

   Hate Forest is one of the most characteristic and distinguishable (dark) gems of black metal in general. Partly very traditional, keeping the core features of the genre, and the same time they've found their own path, that's self-defining on the level that most bands deeply desire in this style, but since not many are able to manage it, therefore their style is more self-defining than usual. 
  If it's about musical influences, early Darkthrone might be the first to be mentioned. Hate Forest never frittered away anything, their songs offering long lasting intense and raw heaviness, that could be comparable to the musical concept and song compositions of Darkthrone's genre defining era. The difference is that Hate Forest turned it as heavy as possible, that didn't really reflect the further development of Norwegian black metal and black metal in general. The strong atmosphere that most classic bands and their followers desired to rely on completely, didn't disappear or decrease in Hate Forest's music, still they've been able to sound heavier than usual, cause intensity remained a preference instead of the ongoing reduction towards further musical minimalism. With other words, it's not about daydreaming of evil forces in the cold, dark forest, but being oppressed and destroyed by evil forces in the cold, dark forest. Massive devastation instead of dark relaxation. In fact Hate Forest did manage to play as extreme and raw music how most of the black metal scene believes they do, but they couldn't even get close. On the side of the intensity and most of the time different (more advantageous) sound quality deep growling vocals are assisting, that are not one the most usual features to encounter in old school black metal, though they work perfectly in this context as well. The lyrical concept also focusing to local mythical topics but instead of Northern paganism or viking-related references there are Scythians and the mythical cycle that was built around them. Which is also working pretty well, and probably having an even more mysterious touch, since the Scythians might have way older and ancient documented origin. 
   In total: Hate Forest's music definitely gave a genuine and determining perspective for black metal by highlighting the level of extremity that the style always claimed to have, but often lacks, and therefore supposed to have.