Red Harvest — New World Rage Music

After the destructive “Cold Dark Matter” released last year, a new release from the Norwegian Red Harvest is welcomed with open arms. Actually this is not a new album, but a re-release of the mini-album “Newrage World Music” from 1998. Red Harvest never got the recognition they deserved until they signed with Nocturnal Art, and now that they’ve build quite a reputation things get re-released with bonus tracks as usual.

For those who’ve missed the past 10 years, Red Harvest was one of the first Norwegian bands to combine brutal metal with electronics and futuristic cyber elements in their music. They have perhaps moved more into a black metal direction the past few years, but still incorporate industrialized sounds and electronic samples into their violent and raw musical style.

“New World Rage Music” starts with a short intro before blasting away with a fast, furious yet melodic track showing precisely what Red Harvest is about. The next track is based around an incredible cold and dark background noise sound and out-of-the-ordinary beats, ending in a even noisier soundscape that will destroy your ears when played loud with headphones on. Two more tracks from the 1998 EP follow, slightly less interesting than the before mentioned songs, but still powerful and hard. Next up is “Final Scorn”, a new track recorded in 2001. Very raw, totally insane vocals and hard-hitting riffs, combined with techno-alike effects. Perhaps the album’s best track. Then we get a live version of “Absolut Dunkel:heit”, taken from the “Cold Dark Matter” album and “The Supreme Truth”, which is an unreleased demo track. The latter is considerably slower and more dragging than the other tracks. The concluding “Terrorsonic Zoidiac” is exactly what you would expect from such a title: killer sonic terror, the soundtrack for someone else’s nightmare.

The “New World Rage Music” is again a good example of what Red Harvest has to offer us with their apocalyptic industrial cyber metal, as they call it. More varied than “Cold Dark Matter”, but still as dark and futuristic. Those who consider themselves fans of industrial metal or are eager to explore the modern sound of Norwegian black metal should definitely check out Red Harvest.