I want to be honest: there was a time, not long ago, I could not stand Pagan/Black Metal any more - this enormous number of bands had a negative influence on quality. A few originators could be denominated as creative and innovative, but too many followers made this genre boring. It seemed to be that everyone wanted to play this kind of music, but lots of bands had no own identity to stick out of the mass.

This problem may occur on a sampler too I thought by myself… but Markus Eck (The Metalmessager, hehe), who stands behind this compilation, invested a lot of heart blood and picked out some jewels with their best songs. It begins with the layout which is all around felicitous (artwork by Kris Verwimp, booklet with a lot of information concerning the featured bands). So it is a lot of fun, the mixture of some known and some underground bands offer good alternation. I just want to name some highlights later, before here are my negative points of criticism.
It is one thing to get inspired by an idol and the other one is to be a simple copy. I am in the opinion that some groups sound like Equilibrium without adding a fresh and personal idea to the sound. This is true for THIASOS DIONYSOS, their song Heidrun is “a little bit” too much inspired by the well known Met of the group named above. Unfortunately this is not the only negative example, I also accuse KROMLEK of missing own ideas. The tracks are well played, no doubt about that, but this is not enough, guys!

Besides, the positive aspects are numerous, among them Norwegian band MISTUR and Swiss ensemble ELUVEITIE contributing nice melodies with flutes and a lot of power. Second named are my favorites on METALMESSAGE VOL.III, I think they could be the next big thing. A large horde of musicians playing diverse exotic instruments (e.g. Crumhorn or Hurdy Gurdy) brings enthusiastic melodies to the surface. I really can deeply recommend the whole album Spirit to all lovers of Medieval sounds. Germany’s FINSTERFORST play Metal in the vein of Finntroll with danceable and powerful rhythms. ARAFEL (Israel) may be known by one or another. I like the mighty hymns with brilliant atmosphere, variable instrumentation and the right dose of bombastic elements. After a mid tempo intro, they speed up and are one of the fastest bands on METALMESSAGE VOL.III. DEMONIC RESURRECTION (India) adds mighty vibes to their up-tempo Black Metal with the help of cool vocal performances; egregious speed alternation rounds off this fine composition. So the spectrum spreads from borne tunes over mid tempo heaviness to furious raging speed. This diversification is a big advantage of this well done release, congratulations to Markus. I am looking forward to the fourth part. Keep up great work!