A little lesson in Northern Mythology: Fenrir was a son of god of fire Loki and Hrimthur (a giant tribe) Angrboda. Incest was a common good in those days, because the dude looked nothing like a human or giant, but like a humongous wolf instead. He was bad-tempered and ill-willed and so the gods thought up a plan to tie him up. After wolfman broke a couple of conventional chains they tried it with a dwarf chain. The chain was called Gleipnir and was made of six ingredients of varying questionable existence: the breath of a fish, the beard of a woman, saliva of a bird, roots of a mountain, the sound of a cat’s paws and tendons of a bear. Týr, the god of war, lost his right hand during the event as Fenrir bit it off.

There are more details to this story, but you’ll have to dig through Wikipedia for those yourself. They key message here is that Fenrir got pissed. And apparently he still is, because he’s still in chains. Must be looking for revenge. Long story short: cool title for a Death Metal song, an EP and a band: Wrath of Fenrir, all released last month.

A few moments ago I asked myself: “Now what is the purpose of Gathering the Troop?” It has been presented as some of my own ego-trippery, but while thinking about the rules that I go by, the actual purpose would be presenting news from lesser-known bands; ones that are either unsigned, or on a smaller label. So I won’t be presenting you the new Between the Buried and Me video, but today we’ll find ourselves some news from Mizraab and some older, while still relevant, news from CAPA.

But first, to quickly familiarise you with the rules of Gathering the Troop. Firstly, I have to be notified of it, either by a reader or a friend, or I have to come across it myself, it be on Facebook or on Tumblr. Secondly, the band has to be unsigned, or on a minor label. These two rules are simply there so I’m not simply repeating what others have written, but in order to secure that we’re presenting you something original.

So, to stay in the vein of this website, I thought of this title just to bring you some news I come across myself, rather than just copying what I read over at the likes of NCS or perhaps what I get through from PR-propaganda. I’ll write what I hear and what I think, and of course this is hugely influenced by our fans, so I’d say, hit us up on Facebook when you have something hot, which is worth mentioning. In this issue, our friend Patrick Urban who pointed out that Dämmerfarben had posted a preview of their upcoming effort Herbstpfad, while I personally picked up a new track from Loch Vostok.

Starting with the latter, I hope we all remember my review of Loch Vostok’s fourth effort Dystopium, which is quite old by now. Reading back, I can’t help but think I grossly misunderstood the album at that point. However, that’s history and now the band is back with a new album. As with Dystopium, it is ViciSolum Productions handling the release of V – The Doctrine Decoded, which is due this autumn. The lads were kind enough to share the song A Tale of Two Kings with us, and with this stream comes the unveiling of the album art, to be seen below.

So I picked up writing again, not because I have the time to (it’s more of the opposite), but it’s just that I have no school or poetical inspiration to quench my thirst for composing literature. I stumbled across these two bands, Negură Bunget and Durdeduh, whose histories are intertwined through conflict.

In brief, Negură Bunget decided to break up in 2009, however drummer Negru treacherously decided to continue with a new line-up, leaving co-founders Hupogrammos and Sol Faur to form Durdeduh. Secretly I’m very grateful for Negru’s betrayal as this has given the world two excellent Romanian Black Metal bands in stead of one.

Do you like sour candies? If you do, you’ll know the experience of the first taste being bitterly sour so that you feel like your face is going to turn inside out, but, there’s that hint and then after-taste of real sweetness that makes you eat another. Before long you’re popping the damn things like the bitterness never existed and thinking they’re the best stuff ever. That is how this album hit me. The perfect sour candy.

Blood Revolt is a trio of veteran extreme metalers. James Read (drums) and Chris Ross (guitars) have played with Axis of Advance and Revenge, among others. Vocalist A.A. Nemtheanga is probably best know from Primordial, though he’s also worked with several others. If you’re familiar to any degree with these bands then you may be starting to see how the sour candy came in.

The advantage of having little time to review albums due to work is that there is more time to listen to albums. Consequently, Vorkreist’s Sigil Whore Christ has been on duty in my laptop’s CD/DVD drive for many hours.

Sigil Whore Christ. I guess you won’t be surprised if I tell you Vorkreist deals in Black Metal. The French band – they’re from Paris – have been active since 1999 and have released albums that all start with S and leave little to be guessed about the band’s lyrical content. Sermons of Impurity, Sabbathical Flesh Possession, Sublimation XXIXA, Sickness Sovereign. You get the picture: Satan’s the big man in the eyes of these dudes.

The band consists of five guys in standards line-up: LSK (bass), D. Terror (drums), A.K. (guitars), EsX (guitars) and Saint Vincent (vocals). Funny names, in true Black Metal style.

You know you’re dealing with some underground shit when this is the best band photo to be found on the whole of the World Wide Web. The next sign is being named after a mountain in their Scottish homeland. And the third and surefire way to tell is the sound they create. This particular sound comes across as a somewhat modernized first-wave Black Metal loaded with Thrash and peppered with Death.

Stob Dearg formed in 2007 as Mortua, changed their name in 2010 and then released this demo in 2012. Nocturnal Witchcraft holds an intro and six songs coming in at just over twenty-six minutes. Just long enough to stay fun without overstaying its welcome. Its also free, so jump on in and get it!

A you’ve all noticed we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus today, but now it’s Friday night and the large part of my exams are over, so I’ll just throw down some of the music I’m digging at the moment. Nothing special, just some bands to keep you busy.

First up is a song by Enslaved, which seems to be a band of contradiction to me. I’m not very familiar with them, but I was really attracted to this song called Ethica Odini, an 8-minute long hybrid of Black Metal and Progressive Rock. It’s really a fabulous piece of music, but when I look at the list of album reviews at the Metal Encyclopedia, I actually find people who are angry with Enslaved for putting out this album Axioma Ethica Odini. I really like it though, because the balance between Black Metal and edgy Prog Rock is just perfect.

It wasn’t very long ago when I wrote a little something about a Russian outfit named Shturm. They are hot shit and so you should read that article if you haven’t already. I thought it worthwhile to sort out an interview with these chaps. Didn’t take long to get it arranged!

Thanks to Adar, vocalist and guitarist, for answering the questions and to Alex, from the band’s label, for arranging the interview for us!

Two Paths came to me by means of two CD-ROMs, in one jewel case, in a box which was in theory able to hold fifty jewel cases, but was filled with polystyrene foam. These guys do handle their babies with care for sure, and after some heedful listening I can see why. Two Paths is an album which is very worthwhile and which should be appreciated to the fullest.

At the first few listens, I didn’t know what to make of this album. I heard influences from all different kinds of Extreme Metal-genres, but none of them was dominating the others really. The above mentioned genre is the closest I could fit without resorting to ridiculously long and extended genre identifications.