I have to confess that I got some prejudices against one-man bands and I simply don’t know why. It’s just strange to me, as I’m used to bands with complete line-ups, with more than one people and playing live, rehearsing etc., something that one-man bands simply can’t do. Anyway, I know that there are some good examples of successful bands with only one member, especially in black metal, and fortunately this seems to be the case of Caed Dhu, a Polish act formed only by Vincent, its mentor since 2004.

Despite Caed Dhu (which means “Black Forest” and was taken from an Andrzej Sapkowski’s book called “The Witcher”) is not the most original black metal band on the earth, the songs presented here show excellent quality and are totally recommended for fans of the extreme metal. Vincent follows the standards of traditional black metal, using high-tuned guitars, fast riffing, shrieking vocals, but also adding some contemporary influences in his compositions, especially some influences which are stronger these days, what makes Caed Dhu to sound more contemporary and not totally old school. Of course, this is not bad, because the band does not fall out of the genre and keeps the evil and obscure aura that is so relevant to black metal.

Among the tracks of this second full-length by Caed Dhu, there are some killer ones, like “Birth of a God”, which brings excellent blast beats and catchy riffs, “Hail the Christreapers”, that has a great chorus and reminded me of some present bands which evince the influence of Motörhead and some punk rock on the black metal formula, and “Suicider”, another fucking metal/punk song, with some great doom touches too in the beginning and in the end. “The Night” is the most original song here, because it is a kind of black metal ballad, something I never saw after some decades of underground and, surprisingly, it worked very well! Another excellent song is “Nevermore”, which brings the poem “The Raven”, written by Edgar Allan Poe translated into brutal, exciting and furious music to the delight of the maniacs who appreciate poetry and know that literature can a great source of inspiration for extreme metal.

So, in general, this is a good release and, despite not representing a revolution in the scene, it can be a violent travel into the black metal universe and, especially, into Vincent’s soul, since he accounts for everything here, including cover design and layout. For someone who is skeptical about one-man bands like I do, this can be a pretty good start in case you wish to change your point of view on the subject.

Cristiano Passos