Beats and yelling: CMPT

Na utrini
Out 27^th December on Osmose Productions

CMPT’s debut album ‘Krv I pepeo’ released in 2021 caught me off guard for its slick development of Burzum style black metal, dragging the form in a more expressively riff based direction whilst retaining the liminal, dreamlike atmosphere that seems so lacking in many paler imitations of Varg’s legacy. CMPT brought frantic a melodicism to the fore, but one still anchored in a clear desire to leverage repetition as a meditative tool. This was offset by a triumphant, warlike spirit hearkening back to the heavy metal derivations of early Rotting Christ or Agatus.

This follow up, entitled ‘Na utrini’, is pitched as a prequal to the debut, which in turn will form part of a trilogy. ‘Krv I pepeo’ took violence as its conceptual starting point. ‘Na utrini’ attempts to anticipate this destruction by exploring wilderness, and ostensibly dead or abandoned places. And it’s certainly true that musically this is borne out in the more tentative, understated initial salvo on ‘Na utrini’. The opening title number settles on a marching pace and soaring melodic material that almost appears as triumphant.

Despite divergencies into faster territory, the epic heavy metal quality is retained throughout, supplementing the feral organicism inherent to CMPT’s style, and a key facet of why they remain uniquely endearing. Their focus remains monomaniacally fixated on place, landscapes, the earth, and wilderness. But here we see a conscious attempt to humanise these elements both through references to the peoples that once occupied the “northern wing of the Danube bank in the lower part of the Pannonian basin” and in the more accessible, lyrical quality within many of the riffs.

There’s no denying the fact that as a listening experience, this brings the music closer to a euphoric, fist pumping form of heavy metal expressed through black metal technique. But CMPT keep their gaze fixed on the wider picture – and indeed the context of this material in a much longer trilogy – by pulling the music back to a semblance of sobriety through lashing assaults of blasting drums, darker riff passages, and a keen sense of narrative construction. They set the scene for an anthemic chorus only to force the music through a glum corridor of melancholia, drab chord sequences borrowed from the Ukrainian style, or else an animalistic aggression.

Of the many choices available to artists attempting to overcome second album blues, CMPT have opted to take some serious risks by expanding their stylistic palette. This is expressed not just through the more obvious heavy metal influences, but a good deal of folk music makes its way into the riff contouring. On top of that, the songs are paced out in more accessible chunks, with a clear distinction made between lead and rhythm sections attempting to foreground licks and refrains. This is in stark contrast to traditional black metal forms that usually attempt to make the music flow in the same direction, taking on the look of a singular object (in general).

Whilst none of this is in and of itself bad – selling out is only negative insofar as it dulls musical ambition – marshalling these elements together could have spelled disaster in lesser hands. But CMPT’s identity was already so well formed on the debut, and carried through on this follow up, that it contains, elevates, or otherwise enhances the more accessible elements they have deployed across ‘Na utrini’. The result is a powerfully emotive yet dignified work, bringing together the brighter, more hopeful aspects of non-extreme metal to bear on dark, longform black metal. A work as intriguing as it is daring.