Taken from
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/ :
By now, pretty much every blackmetalhead who hasn't been lost in a grim and frostbitten forest for the last 5 years is well aware, and most likely a huge fan of the mighty Leviathan, which is just one man, Wrest, who along with likeminded outifts Xasthur, Draugar, Crebain and a handful of others have managed to reinvent and reinvigorate black metal in the last few years, while turning California into a land as grim and as black as the Norwegian clime that spawned the genre. But there was a time, when Leviathan hadn't released any proper records at all, outside of a handful of cassettes and home made cd-r's. This double disc collects the best bits from all of those releases and was the first glimpse many folks would get of the blackness that would come to define modern USBM. This is the second and FINAL pressing of this essential slab of black metal, limited to 666 copies (of course). Once these are gone, it's back to eBay on bloodied knees for you! Here's what we had to say about Verrater the first time around (with some minor updates and adjustments):
Those of you who live in San Francisco may have seen or even bought some of the many self released casettes by the mysterious one man black metal band called Leviathan. Or some of you may have seen Andee or Allan sporting their Leviathan shirts, or you may have even seen Wrest, the man behind Leviathan lurking around AQ...regardless, Leviathan is the latest and certainly one of the greatest of the Bay Area black metal bands (Ludicra, Sangre Amado, Crebain, Draugar and the godlike Weakling [both also on tUMULt], etc...) who seem to exist in some sort of vacuum here while elsewhere, band after unoriginal band keep getting signed to huge labels and hyped to death even though most of them suck.
For this release Andee and Wrest went through the 13 full length Leviathan cassettes/cd-r's (as of the release of Verrater that number had leapt to 15!) Leviathan had recorded since 1998 to compile a good overview. But they couldn't whittle it down enough so one disc became two, with the first disc being the newer stuff, and disc two being the older, raw-er material.
Verrater is pure, primitive, cult, home recorded evil. Two discs, twenty two tracks, one hundred and forty three minutes of buzzing, howling, pummelling, black metal. Think Burzum, Darkthrone, Immortal, that sort of thing, but with all sorts of weird twists and sonic surprises. Yes, Leviathan is grimmer than grim metal that the frost & forest lords of Norway should bow down to, but it's also pure expression unfettered by genre restraints, although informed and inspired by them. Like Weakling, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Ludicra, Potentiam, Enslaved, and some other AQ-championed black metal acts, this is not just one for fans of black metal only! It's dark, weird, noisy, disturbing art embodying one man's vision that should be heard by anyone into avantgarde, experimental, psychically and physically powerful rock music. From blasting howling fury to moody ambient blackness to off kilter weirdness to droning riffery to soul crushing heaviness. What's truly remarkable is that one man, playing all the instruments himself, and recording at home, can evoke such strong emotions and invoke such musical demons. Original, evil, hateful, misanthropic, bizarre and truly black metal.
You better be quick.
Me = broke = :cry:
