Beats and yelling shorts, 16th March 24

Seid: Svartr Sol
Out 19^th January on ATMF – De Tenebrarum Principio

Seid seem chiefly preoccupied with marrying the ponderous trance pacing of Ukrainian black metal with elements of Viking opera. Through this unity, they reveal the melancholia of Swedish melodicism hidden beneath the death metal topography of bands like Vinterland or Dawn. Tension arises once removed from the music only insofar as experienced listeners will feel like they have been here before. Seid indulge in a rockist pacing that remains the chief legacy of a band like Drudkh. But they supplement this with a plethora of developments, dynamics, stakes, welcome features that are rarely seen in music that operates within a similar aesthetic legacy. We remain poised to switch off in utter boredom. But for all its presentation, Seid take the time to draw out their material, comment on it, contextualize it. Tempo changes are sporadic but effective. Lead guitar material engages with the contours of the rhythm section as opposed to just filling space. And – perhaps most importantly – despite the cuddly sentiment behind the cadential orientation of these pieces, it never devolves into the sappy privatised emotivism of post rock that infects a lot of black metal occupying a similar space.

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Onslaught Kommand: Visions of Blood and Gore
Out 26^th January on Godz ov War Productions

Essentially Discharge forced through a goregrind filter. Riffs look no further than early thrash for inspiration. Switching between near relentless threads of atonal tremolo passages to staccato shifts in pitch, broken only by the occasional drone of a held chord at moments of release. If anything this music seeks to regress blackened thrash to a pre-Beherit state. Where ‘Oath of Black Blood’ deployed guitar “solos” at key junctures of chaotic climax, Onslaught Kommand refuse to dilute the constant stream of riffing with anything so dramatic as a jump in octave. The effect – whilst derivative – is oddly mesmerising. Vocals complete the picture with a low end, near whispered narration of distorted grunts. There are glimmers of a more sophisticated death metal lineage within some of this material, shadows of Autopsy can be heard particularly on the track ‘Headless’. But for the most part this is a highly regressive blackened thrash offering wearing a goregrind hat. It would be laughable were it not for how convincingly Onslaught Kommand pull off a near psychotic fixation with regressive minimalism in the context of music that still purports to be “active” in some degree.

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LHA​Ä​D: Beneath
Out 20^th March on Amor Fati Productions

Falls into the same trap as many contemporary acts attempting to colour black metal in with a diverse plethora of extra musical conceptual material, in this case the depths of the ocean. Namely, that so much effort is expended on othering themselves from what they consider to be garden variety iterations of genre, that the base level substance is neglected, offering very little of value as a result. LHA​Ä​D adopt a similar posture to Darkspace in this regard, and indeed, many of the chord progressions mirror their Swiss counterparts by leveraging simple ascending binary patterns from minor to major to conjure a feeling of drifting away or sinking down. Whilst this technique can be effective when deployed with care, LHA​Ä​D seem unable to build directly upon it, instead veering into rather flat passages of modernist black metal fair that go nowhere but insist on utilising the genre’s calling cards for cultural capital. A comparable example is the use of sparse arpeggios atop a blast-beat. Again, an effective tool when deployed intelligently. But here used as a stand in for dramatic stakes when nothing is forthcoming in the melodic character of these pieces. The result is a paradox. A sensory overload of textural information, concealing a near total lack of substance beneath. As for the rest, ‘Beneath’ has little to offer beyond contrived crescendos of ringing chords that follow the same pattern as the – usually overworked – passage preceding it, used as a shortcut to grandiose finales. Attempting to transpose black metal into program music for the ocean’s depths is all very well – and as a source of inspiration has garnered surprisingly little attention – but if one is unable to articulate just how their music conveys this beyond a few disposable tricks they had better offer a substantive musical package as compensation, something sadly lacking here.

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Acathexis: Immerse
Out 20^th March on Amor Fati/Extraconscious

Essentially a post rock album with tremolo guitars. Ambiguity via chromaticism or atonality is eschewed in favour of the warm comfort of familiar tonal centres. Acathexis hope to gain currency with a black metal fandom through the use of blast-beats, harsh vocals, and a rich guitar tone. It’s true that they sometimes lean into melodic contours that could be considered “epic” in the traditional sense of the word, mirroring progressions that would be at home on a Viking themed black metal album, but these moments are supplementary to the underlying narrative threads that appear fixated on providing a warm blanket of catharsis. Harmonic material jumps out as almost lyrical in the absence of clean vocals that would be suited to the sugary sweet packaging, mirroring late power metal in their willingness to please. If one approached this in complete disregard for the black metal presentation, and looked simply at the underlying substance, it would make for a rather active iteration of elevator ambience. But beyond Acathexis’s ability to elevate [sic] decidedly stale material through significant studio time and effort, this album has little to say or offer.

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Duindwaler: In het Heemskerks duin
Out 21^st March on Void Wanderer Productions/War Productions/Zwaertgevegt

Achieves a similar effect to drone in the relentless repetition of individual riffs, set to mid-paced blast beats and presented with sparse but not unpolished production. Developments are only forthcoming once a single idea has been dwelt on beyond reason. The modest distortion of the guitars leaves plenty of room within the mix, a vacuum filled not by washes of synth accompaniments as one might expect, but instead with distinctive basslines, contrapuntally picking their way through the gaps a-la the extended opening motif on Gorgoroth’s ‘Antichrist’. Vocal tracks are overlayered on top of one another, one functioning as a mid-ranged bark, the other a more demonic guttural howl reminiscent of Glen Benton circa ‘Legion’. As far as meat ‘n’ two veg black metal is concerned, Duindwaler are decidedly bland. But there seems to be not only self-awareness but intentionality behind this. They lean into the much debated limitations of the genre with gusto, teasing out meta interpretations from material both sparse and cyclical. They succeed in this regard where others fail thanks to an ambiguity of melodic focus. They will tease at a lyrical character within the riffs, but they are forever pulled back to a baseline of basic power chords, knitted together with minor key and tritone play. None of this is particularly ground breaking, but ‘In het Heemskerks duin’ pleases in its ability to playfully engage within such a tight creative space, and continue to raise questions within this arena.

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Heraldic Blaze: Blazoned Heraldry
Out 21^st March on Purity Through Fire

The colour scheme may be black metal, the ornamentation swerving between Northern European folk touches and medievalism, but artists like this just can’t disguise the fact that they’re playing pop punk. The crossover appeal of folk punk and black metal is as obvious as it is ridden with fascists, but for all the fantasy based nostalgia (they may take issue with the use of this word, preferring instead traditionalism or “heraldry”, but as the past these bands hearken back to never really existed lets call it what it is) it does seem odd to me that they choose to express this via musical forms developed by horny gen-Xers in the late 90s. Major keys have an important role to play within black metal, as does the occasional bounce of rhythmic pomp. But when these things are foregrounded to such an extent, adorned with little in the way of substantive artistic intent, the music ceases to speak on any other level than as pop music. At this point, the lo-fi packaging, the harsh vocal, tinny guitar tone, and sporadic blast-beats become nothing more than dog whistles. If you wanna play pop punk, just play pop punk, some of it was pretty good. You can even add a flute or two if you’re that way inclined. But there’s no need to hide behind a legitimising cape of more high minded music. In dispensing with the language of black metal whilst retaining its garments, and at the same time refusing to embrace a polish of full fat pop rock that would have aided these songs, Heraldic Blaze succumb to a middle way that fails on both terms.