Well, sometimes, when I have in hands bands that love to use a putrid sound quality, the first thing that I ask myself is "why?", because it's hard for me to understand. I have two different ideas in hands, one that I can accept, and the other that isn't possible to understand, so it is not acceptable:

1. The "Ugly Aesthetics": this concept I learned when I was watching to Varg Vikernes' commentaries in 2008's North American documentary "Until the Light Takes Us". Varg explained that the earlier Norwegian Black Metal bands used something raw and harsh to oppose to clean and defined Death Metal recordings. It has a sense on his words, and it opened a conception that Black metal bands carry even today, and even when they use modern technologies to record an album (the rawness you hear comes from the tunes of the instruments, and from some effects of the recording).

2. The love for the past: we can say that VENOM was a pioneer on Metal, because 1981' "Welcome to Hell" and 1982' "Black Metal" started a great amount of different musical ways into Metal. Thrash Metal and Death Metal have deeper roots on the band, and even Black Metal as we all know (in a personal conception, I see VENOM not as the creator of Black Metal, but the one who named it. BATHORY is the most important band on creating the blueprint features that many use today). Still today, VENOM prefers to record with a crude Hardcore sound. BATHORY had terrible recordings on "Bathory" and "!The Return", but the difficulties to earn enough money to record the albums as Quorthon wanted led him to do it the best he could (on a 1987 magazine here in Brazil, I remember of reading that Quorthon had to sell potato stew to record the first BATHORY album).

Still speaking about the second, Brazilian discs as the earlier SEPULTURA's works (1985's EP "Bestial Devastation" and 1986's "Morbid Visions"), VULCANO's "Bloody Vengeance", the compilation "Warfare Noise I" from 1986 (who presented to the world names as SARCÓFAGO, CHAKAL, HOLOCAUSTO and MUTILATOR), the Split disc of DORSAL ATLÂNTICA and METALMORPHOSE "Ultimatum" had such terrible sound qualities for some reasons I'll testify for you all. I don't know if the readers can conceive these, but as a witness of this evolution here, I'll write:

1. In the middle of the 80's, Brazil was crawling in terms of Metal productions. No technician knew what to do, because they all knew how to record Samba, Bossa Nova, the disgusting MPB, and some hilarious Brazilian musical tendencies (even being a Brazilian, I must say it). Even the Pop Rock bands here suffered a lot with this lack of knowledge. Tarso Senra was the first one to do something acceptable, besides TAURUS had a good sound quality on "Signo de Taurus" and AZUL LIMÃO as well on "Vingança". The technicians had to learn for themselves, because it was extremely expensive to leave the country, learn and come back to apply the teachings (still today, it's almost impossible to live here as musical producer working exclusively with Metal bands);

2. The difference between technologies: in those days, to record a Metal album with decent conditions wasn't an easy task, even in Europe and USA. Here, things were much worse. We had problems with the country's economy (the first democrat presidents loved to play with it, and people suffered a lot), only great studios could buy modern techs on those days. Nas Nuvens Studio, where SEPULTURA recorded "Beneath the Remains", was an expensive studio used only by Brazilian musical celebrities. But as Dollar was far valuable than Cruzeiro novo, Cruzado or any Brazilian monetary unit used on those days (I can't remember now), Roadrunner Records paid it all, but the band recorded all in only three sessions (so you are seeing that the recording schedules were extremely short). The mix and mastering were done on USA by Scott Burns on Morrisound Studio. Hope that Scott and the guys recovered from eating only bread with cheese for three days, thanks to the known Brazilian corruption on the governments' institutions.

3. Cultural differences: this must enter on the account, because here, in the 80's, it was extremely common for our parents send us to work during the morning (or afternoon), to "teach the children about responsibility and to stay away from drugs", and we had to study as well. We worked on the morning or afternoon, and had to study on one of these periods, and some of us (me included) had to work on both periods and study at night. It was a mental and physical massacre, and now you must think how many hours of sleep the musicians had to lose for the recording sessions. And the greater part of the sessions happened late at night, because it was cheaper than during the day (yes, another Brazilian feature from the 80s). Are you terrified by my words? Wait to read that this feature hadn't change, and it is the same from the past!

4. The lack of knowledge about musical instruments and musical theory: in a country with such hard life as Brazil, on the 80s, 85-90% of the musicians were self-taught. SEPULTURA had a hard time to record "Morbid Visions" on São Paulo, because of the technical difficulties (Max even didn't knew how to tune his own guitar, as it is written on his biography).

So we can say that those 8 or 16-tracks recordings were done in the best conditions the bands could do. It wasn't for a weird conception of "attitude" or "true Metal musical". And there are other Brazilian albums of those days that many of you never heard about with bad sound qualities. "SP Metal I", ""SP Metal II" (two compilations with four bands in each volume, and each band had two songs). On those days, "Signo de Taurus" from Thrash Metal band TAURUS from Niterói (RJ), "A Ferro e Fogo" (a 6-song EP) from São Paulo-based quintet HARPPIA,"Vingança" from traditional Heavy Metal quartet AZUL LIMÃO (from Rio de Janeiro) were considered excellent sound qualities (even using only a 16-tracks recording). And the historical Split "Ultimatum", from DORSAL ATLÂNTICA and METALMORPHOSE demanded the bands to sell come parts of their sound gears to be done to have a poor sound quality.

Oh, maybe you don't know, but VULCANO's "Blood Vengeance" had a change of studio, because the sound technicians of the first one were Protestants who refused to record "devil's music" (here in Brazil, the greater churches are all from the so called Pentecostal movement, and some adepts are really conservative fundamentalists in a way that could blush many of my dear writers from Europe and USA). And it's another album recorded in bad conditions.

I don't have deeper information about "Wicca", the first album from MYSTIFIER, but their earlier works before its release (the Demo Tapes "Tormenting the Holy Trinity" from 1989, the Single "The Evil Ascension Returns" from 1990, and the second Demo Tape "Aleister Crowley" from 1991) were putrid due the band's conditions as well.

But the most legendary Brazilian underground independent 1987's album is "I.N.R.I.", from Belo Horizonte's based quartet SARCÓFAGO. Yes, I know that "I.N.R.I." is a strong influence for Death/Black Metal bands and even to European underground scenes. But this album was recorded back in the beginning of 1987, a time when economy of Brazil came to a highly unstable time, with things become too expensive, so imagine how things were working for the band. And one more thing: on an interview back on 1990, Antichrist (the band vocalist/guitarist/leader) stated that days during the recording sessions, the band was basically being torn apart due internal tensions between the members, and you have simultaneously copies of "I.N.R.I." and "Rotting", you'll see that the band's lineup changed, a consequence of the tensions.

So, as you can see, all those legendary names you can think off had to deal with extreme adverse conditions during their recording sessions. Ok, I know you can record an album with such bad sound quality as they did, but you can't reproduce their feelings, that time's features. We live in a complete different world now, and the feeling of the past is gone. You won't bring it back, because it's not a matter of how you record or the equipment and tech you use, but of time. A time that's a long gone.

Some bands try to use old equipment as well, running away from modern techs. But their music, many times, sounds totally empty and artificial, not organic. The use the old analogue techs is expensive, so you have to record with digital techs, and even with pedals, guitars with no active capitation and cables, and with you can't do it as the ancients did. Of course that bands with musical works based on the genres of the 60s, 70s and 80s have their space today, and it's truly a good thing that they are here, but they must record as they can, not trying to sound as the ancients. If you do such a thing, I warn you: your music will only sound artificial.

About Black Metal bands that are inspired by the SWOBM roots, you can sound crude without being incomprehensible. SATYRICON and IMMORTAL are fine examples of that on "The Shadowthrone" and "Battles in the North". But trying to sound as MAYHEM on "Deathcrush" or "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" is a mistake, because we don't have the clear idea of what was happening with the band back on the recording days. It wasn't only the "ugly aesthetics" working, but it seems that many factors were there that we don't know.

For those who want a crude and organic sound, a good thing to do is the wise choice for the instrumental tunes. There is where the essence of the music you are looking for is, so don't misunderstand the things. I will say again what I said many times before on my reviews: hire a good producer who knows how to work with your musical genre. The DIY attitude won't be compromised for that.

Remember: you only have one chance with a good recording quality, so do it with the conditions you have in hands, and leave the past aside. Look for a better future!