Staying in the former Soviet Union, kind of, we cross west to Hungary, where we find a band who have been going since 1993, so therefore know all about Black Metal, but also use instruments like trumpets and trombones in their music. Sounds interesting, and we've been directed to this, their second album...
The Haunting --- Sear Bliss --- 1998 (II Moons)
A big growling guitar greets us, running off one single riff at a time for a few seconds before it gets going properly, as drums and keyboards come in and “Tunnels of vision” opens the album. The vocal is sibilant, almost a hiss, discernible but I'm not sure what he's singing. This is the founder and brainchild of the band, András Nagy, who also plays bass, while his two mates János Barbarics and Viktor Max Scheer take care of guitar duties, with Gergely Szücs on both trumpet and keyboards. There's a real sense of running, of panic in this track, sort of reminds me in structure of Floyd's “On the run” from
Dark Side of the Moon. Some very effective organ now taking control of the tune as we head into the sixth minute of the eight it runs for and then it slows down again on a grindy, harsh guitar line, and ends on some really pretty piano.
“Hell within” has an odd mix of snarly guitar, peppy synth and choral vocals, then stops halfway --- completely stops --- and then takes up again with a guitar solo and the first sound we hear of the trumpet, which certainly adds a new dimension to the song. Almost gives it a Mariachi sound! “Land of silence” has a really nice acoustic guitar which quickly gives way to a harder electric and then rocks along nicely, while “Unholy dance” is another long one, over eight minutes and has some really almost AOR keyboards work on it. It's really very catchy, and the keys as I say work really well, the tempo a good bit slower than has been the case so far on this album. The trumpet also makes its presence felt again. One of the best tracks here, at least so far.
Now I almost feel like I've put on some dark ambient/darkwave album or something, music by people who wear long dark coats and mascara and who wouldn't know how to smile if their lives depended on it. And now the trumpet. These guys are nothing if not versatile. And the weird and creepiness continues in the title track, which certainly lives up to its billing with a spooky,
Twilight Zone-like riff, dark hard guitar which sounds like someone battering at the door trying to get in, something crying in the corner, and a pretty bitchin' riff all round. Just superb. To partially quote TechnicLePanther, this is amazing.
We come to the end of the album then with “Left in the dark”, and it's another powerful semi-ballad with grinding guitar and strong keyboards. Halfway through it bursts into life on that drilling guitar, then slows down into a real boogie/blues groove before it slows to pure piano and a spoken vocal, trumpet and guitar then taking the tune towards its conclusion with keyboards adding those important flourishes and then the whole thing fades out, leaving me with a feeling of having experienced something really special.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. Tunnels of vision
2. Hell within
3. Land of silence
4. Unholy dance
5. Soulless
6. The haunting
7. Left in the dark
Leaving behind the cold, often inhospitable and grey landscape of Eastern Europe for now, we take a jetliner across the Atlantic Ocean to land in America, where we then hop on a greyhound heading towards Utah, the heartland of America and stronghold of the Mormons, not a place you would expect “the devil's music” to thrive, but there's an ABM band based there in Salt Lake City, and this is their first and to date only album.
Echoes of Battle --- Caladan Brood --- 2013 (Northern Silence Records)
Interesting that this band, based in the US, should be on the same label as the German Dammerfarben, whom we listened to earlier. This band is a two-piece, consisting of the equally ludicrously-named Shield Anvil and Mortal Sword, who seem to split the playing and indeed the vocal duties more or less equally between them. The album only has six tracks, but three of them are over thirteen minutes long, with the longest edging almost into fifteen, so lots to get through.
“City of azure fire” starts us off, with picked guitar and piano, lush dark synth sliding in and joined by violin before percussion hits and the guitar gets a little more worked up. Even the short tracks are long, as it were, and this one is just over ten minutes, two of which are used in the instrumental buildup before the vocals hit. Another scratchy, snarly vocal --- whether it's Sword or Anvil (really?) --- supplying them I don't know as they're both credited with vocals, neither seen as lead. Obviously they're not the kind of vocals I like, but then this is that type of music and I guess I should expect it by now. Dolorous, pealing bells add to the sense of dark despair and then a choir starts up too. All very atmospheric, and in general slow and stately in tempo. For a ten minute song it doesn't seem that long, and soon enough we're into the title track, which runs for over nine minutes. It's a little more chaotic than the opening track, though it does settle into a really nice mellotron-or-something passage for a short time before burning up the frets again. Very good use of the choir again.
Two seriously long tracks next. Clocking in at almost fourteen minutes is the very melodic “Wild autumn wind”, which somehow sounds familiar, I don't know from where. There's some really good instrumentation in this, particularly violin, and it has an eerie, haunting, sad feel about it for most of the track. Lovely melody. Great powerful ending and then it's like trumpet or clarinet or something before the guitars and drums pound back in. Sterling stuff. “To walk the ashes of dead empires” has a beautiful, slow, majestic keyboard and measured drumming driving it that even the howled vocals can't destroy. There's some very almost cinematic music here, kind of John Williams/ John Barry kind of thing. Very stirring, very breathtaking.
Sounds like a mandolin solo in the seventh minute, really excellent. Another fine performance from the choir, with accompaniment from what could be harpischord and trumpets and trombones, then it goes kind of celtic/Viking near the end with a warriorlike chorus, pipes and acoustic guitar, very folky. A really nice organ line opens “A voice born of stone and dust”, where the vocal is for once not screaming, but a kind of growling whisper. A military-style drumbeat carries the song along, and there's a really great piano solo there near the end. Speaking of the end, we've arrived with the longest of the songs, almost fifteen minutes of “Book of the Fallen”, and it opens with a strong acapella choir, then a church organ and piano before guitar bursts through with the vocals. A real tribute to the dead as well as a resignation to the futility of war, it's a powerful closer, lots of energy and passion, gets really intense about halfway through its run. Great final performance from the choir to take it to its conclusion.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. City of azure fire
2.Echoes of battle
3.Wild autumn wind
4.To walk the ashes of dead empires
5. A voice born of stone and dust
6. Book of the fallen
A fine example of American ABM, with added folk elements thrown in. It's really impressive how so many of these bands are one or two-man operations, and yet can manage to sound like a full ensemble. I know with modern recording techniques, synthesisers, sequencers and computer software these days that's achievable, but you must have a core of talent before you can even think of recording, so kudos to everyone we've heard so far who have made it by themselves or just with one mate. Proves numbers are not everything.
Where are we off to now? Oh, back to Germany.
Songs of Moors and Misty Fields --- Empyrium --- 1997 (Prophecy)
Seems that one thing that is becoming clear as we journey through the often dark and mysterious land of Atmospheric Black Metal is that its reliance on and relation to folk metal, and folk music, is almost undeniable. All the bands we've looked into so far, from Ulver to Burzum, seem to utilise the precepts and themes that have characterised folk music for centuries, ever looking backward in order to look forward, paying respect to the past in order to create the future. Though there is certainly metal in it, much of it is more rooted in the deeper, more spiritual and often gentler rhythms of nature, human emotion and history or folklore.
Empyrium were formed in 1994 but only had their first album released in 1996 --- again, interestingly, the title of that album,
Wintersunset, seems to have been taken for one of the labels who release this music, as we saw with Folkvang --- and this is their second. They're still around as of the time of writing, but oddly have only put out a total of five albums over nearly twenty years, with a twelve-year gap between their last, 2002's
Weiland and last year's
The Turn of the Tides.
The opener is a nice pastoral piece, very short and so I assume an instrumental, but I'm wrong as a choir comes in and a spoken voice takes “When shadows grow longer”, then “The blue mists of night” kick everything up as the tempo begins to romp along on guitar and drums, with a dark screechy voice belonging to Ulf Schwadorf, who also plays guitar, bass
and drums! Some lovely piano from the appropriately-named Andreas Bach then frames a much deeper, but clearer voice as Ulf sings of, I think, a longing to return to the simplicity of nature and an agrarian life. Very nice guitar backing him in the third minute (well, backing himself I guess, as he plays the guitar) and the tune slows down to something of a dirge, then returns to the almost medieval feel of the opener, with flute and acoustic guitar.
That's the end of the shorter tracks, as the next four all reach over nine minutes, one stretching to almost ten. “Mourners” is, as you would probably expect, slow and doomy, with a real lament in the vocal. These guys seem to use a choir too and it works well. “Ode to melancholy” features a really stentorian vocal and is again (not surprisingly given the title) a slow and brooding song. Very sedate really, and even when the guitar comes in it's more expressive than aggressive (hey that's good!) though the melody is mostly driven by the keyboards, and the song is through its almost nine minutes before I even realise it. “Lover's grief” (anyone else picking up on a theme here?)
comes in on what appears to be slow flute before the percussion hits and takes guitar with it, the vocal another deep one with lush keyboard backing it. Some really powerful, stirring music here: kind of makes you want to salute a flag or at the very least fire up
Call of Duty...
Beautiful instrumental fadeout, especially with the piano right there at the end, and we're into the final track, “The ensemble of silence”, led in on flute and acoustic guitar in a slow, relaxed tune with literally a whispered vocal, so low you can barely even make it out. The guitar does kick up in the third minute, but still we're looking at almost completely instrumental here. As I say, there are vocals but they're so low as to be almost inaudible. They're actually becoming a little more distinct now as we head into the fourth minute. After a brief foray into heavier territory the music has settled down into that quiet, pastoral vein now, and the vocals, again whispered, are now spoken, almost like narration. Choir coming in now, raising the level of drama and emotion.
Kicking up now for the big finish, with the screechy voice replacing the stentorian one, but the music is still really emotional and atmospheric, and it fades out on a lovely acoustic guitar backed by soft keys.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. When shadows grow longer
2. The blue mists of night
3. The mourners
4. Ode to melancholy
5. Lover's grief
6. The ensemble of silence