Funeral Baptism: In Solitudine
Out 30th May on Loud Rage Music
If you ever conceived the (admittedly niche) desire to know what Dissection would sound like playing depressive black metal it’s all here. Thrilling and graceful melodic content flirting on the border of the trivial engages in a balancing act with intense emotional flourishes expressed through overly dramatic vocals and sudden outbreaks of dissonance. A duality that accounts for the sins of its opposite. The result is nevertheless confused. Funeral Baptism, for all their bombast, appear to be unsure of their direction, jumping at ideas almost at random, hoping to hit paydirt. The music lacks any flow, coherence, or enjoyment as a result. Tension arises from little more than the appearance that the music is about to collapse into emo posturing at any point. An album bereft of attention span. No idea is developed beyond its immediate confines. And when Funeral Baptism appear completely at a loss as to how to develop a given passage, their only recourse is to contrived melodrama or off-the-shelf black ‘n’ roll riffing.
Trivax: The Great Satan
Out 30th May on Osmose Productions
Fudged death metal vocals. Check. Satan in the title. Check. Stylistic incontinence. Check. Hammy theatrics. Check. Fist pumping grooves to keep the shitmunchers engaged. Check. It seems that Trivax are one dogfood advert away from becoming the official successor to Behemoth and the vast estate of casualised fandom that comes with it. I suppose the frustrating thing about this kind of extreme metal, aside from how it sounds, is the pretence of esoterica, packaging an experience with little more to offer than a Disney film. A handful of post rock flourishes to add “depth” or “variety” or something do little to salvage an otherwise worthless wreckage of a pop metal tantrum that I’m sure otherwise intelligent people will lap up due to the cultural capital invested in this stylistic facsimile of art.
Mourir: Insolence
Out 23rd May on Distant Voices
Typical of the very untypical style of black metal emanating from France ever since the mid-90s. This EP offers an explosive array of intense, raw black metal alongside depressive left turns, each transmission guided by little more than a collapse into guitar noise, tasking the rhythm section to re-conjure solidity out of the murk. Whilst comparisons to Antaeus would not be unwarranted, Mourir’s relationship to violence appears more passive despite the reckless aggression displayed on this EP. The downbeat gloom expressed across each track is an act of submission, no less intense than the war like spirit of their grindcore oriented compatriots, but undeniably more defeatist. Like much French black metal, the concoction of dissonance, noise, emotional juxtapositions, and rampant disregard for conventions of form are all interesting enough on paper. But the listening experience could hardly be called enjoyable on an artistic level. One is constantly saying “I can see why they did that”, and never “that was really good”. In this sense it serves an important purpose in challenging genre dogma, even if the motion required to turn it into art is found wanting.
Wald Krypta: Disenchantment
Out 30th May on Eternal Death
Borrowing from both the French and Nordic traditions, this raw black metal deconstruction of melody offers little in the way of insight despite the undeniable joy in execution. The demo quality production feels like a contrivance. But the extent and depth to which the performances deliberately fall apart and reconfigure over the length of this short album hearken back to a time when accidents were still possible, when things happened. The drums are frequently lost in the aether. When engaging in a mid-paced blast-beat it’s not always clear if they are in time or even present. The dominant guitars cling on to rhythmic coherence for dear life despite the confidence of the riffs themselves. Vocals are…there. The mix of bracing epic thematic material and primitive punk derived marches is paced out well, as are the shifts from the reflective to the visceral. The sloppy nature of the music only enhancing the experience of feral activity in lieu of any additional flourishes or keyboard accompaniment. Whether intentional or no, the amateur packaging of the music enhances what could otherwise have been just another slab of surplus raw black metal.
Svart Vinter: Isvind
Out 30th May on Non Servium Records
A lazy amalgamation of generic black metal furniture papered over with hammed up emotional gestures that do little to cloak the lack of imagination and substance on display. Svart Vinter are typical of contemporary black metal in that it leverages its vocabulary for the sake of tedious exercises in mental catharsis, hoping that drama will carry the day, or if nothing else overloading the listener with information. The result is limited horizons. Each track limits itself to one central idea, developing little as it progresses, but still behaving as if it has some purpose or idea to convey. A domesticated, confined, restrictive experience with little to say beyond its immediate surroundings, and boring if not outright irritating to sit through.
Onirik: Curling Serpents Under Stone
Out 30th May on I, Voidhanger Records
Angular black metal extends the melodic meandering of Abigor and mid-90s Norway into more hesitant, meditative territory. Superficially cluttered and active, what emerges as the music progresses is a ponderous, reflective beast, expressing itself through prominent lead guitar lines that work in tandem with the vocals to deliver oddly lyrical pieces. Subtle synth lines underpin the mix alongside modest rhythm guitar. Drums adopt a non-linear approach, hacking up the mid-paced blast-beats with divergent fills and shuffling rhythms to further unsettle the flow of the music. The result is active yet ethereal. An uncanny rumination on mysticism and naturalism that takes the listener out of the moment, but through an insistence on non-repetition, a constant churn of material, it keeps one conscious and engaged at an intellectual level as one follows the odd currents and cadences of the central melodic refrains. The result is both orchestral yet conversational. What results is a novel way to repurpose older material into new and engaging guises.
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