[Review] The Slave Eye – Unto Hades

The Slave Eye is a seemingly underground and hidden black metal band that is based between the US and Finland, yet this band has some high profile musicians. The lineup features two members from Renascent and another who played and toured with Vengeance Rising. These members have also had many other involvements in other reputable bands. It only seems promising seeing all these musicians coming together and release Unto Hades, their most recent ep.

First off The Slave Eye makes use of the artistic license available to many in black metal, raw production. Often something that scares people off of black metal, raw production has two main variations. The first is a DIY sound of people who cannot afford anything else and the second is a deliberate aim at being raw even with studio quality recordings. The Slave Eye is definitely the latter. People may be mistaken to thinking not much thought is placed into this raw production; I’d beg to differ here. Reminiscent of Antestor’s Omen, which was recorded in four different studios and engineered with the meticulous supervision of the band – I am sure there is something similar at work with Unto Hades. Perhaps black metal is an acquired taste, but this raw production fits like a glove.

Does this make the band a more traditional black metal? Not really, this band’s sound is pretty modern and unique with the era it’s in. The song structures are not necessarily one tempo or the other overall, but they still hold atmosphere and develop maturely in each song. The musicians behind this collectively maintain proficiency, drums are creatively thought out; guitars fill up all the empty spaces in your ears with rhythms, harmonies and even tasteful solos. The vocals are sharp and stern; the only thing, which is typical of black metal is there could be more presence held by the bass – an instrument used here to mainly fill the bass void.

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