Furze is a one man black metal project that has been getting some attention in the underground with the release of Trident Autocrat and Necromanzee Cogent . Both albums were essentially grim kvlt black metal but with a real sense of the weird and what might have been deliberate screwing around.

UTD is the new album penned by Woe J. Reaper under the Furze moniker and is split into two halves, Side Death and Side Devil. Side Death is also called Beneath The Odd Edge Sounds To The Twilight Contract Of The Black Fascist and is songs one to four and focuses on the grim black metal side of things while Side Devil or songs five to eight titled The Wealth Of The Penetration In The Abstract Paradigmas Of Satan sees Reaper adopt a slower approach much like the monolithic work outs on Necromanzee Cogent. Now, needless to say, Furze has always been a bit weird. Almost like Reaper was parodying the black metal genre. While a few reviews are comparing this album to early works by Darkthrone I think Furze has more in common with the likes of other lo-fi one man projects like Countess. In fact the absolutely horrid production is strikingly similar to Countess’ Book Of The Heretic album, although the guitar tone here is marginally better.

As for the songs, they are all mostly grim, kvlt and black but every now and then (like in the ending of Demonic Order in the Eternal Fascist's Hall) there’s a sense of Mr. Bungle in the music and a certain playfulness that seems at odds with the genre. This is better demonstrated in the second half of the album on the song Goatbreath with it’s completely off time drum and bass workout that is quite unbearable to sit through. When Woe J. starts to play fast it’s almost like he loses control of the instruments and the songs almost become white noise. But when he slows down a bit, the music becomes quite engaging in a very stoner friendly way.

Still, at the end of the day Furze focus on really fast black metal through most of the album and end up being quite unlistenable. While Necromanzee Cogent was and still is a captivating black metal release that saw Woe J. take his music in some exciting new directions, UTD seems like a tribute to every shitty, badly produced black metal band from the last fifteen years and is quite obviously a pile of shit. Avoid like the plague.   

Label - Candlelight

Year Of Release - 2007