ARATIC – To The Early Grave

Aratic is a Finnish, 4-piece comprised of youngsters to the music scene. Their debut: To The Early Grave, contains 9 take no prisoners hard-hitting tracks. With song titles such as “Satan’s Witnesses,” “Puritanist Of The Black Light,” and “Lobotomy Christianus,” along with the favored semi-demonic shout delivery by vocalist Henri Virolainen, Aratic could easily fall into Old School Black Metal categorization (a la Venom). Aratic’s form of Thrash/Death/Black Metal is musically rousing, but the production does the band no favors — their biggest strength (the music) is drowned out by Virolainen’s vocals, which come through too high in the mix.