Seltzer

LINE-UP

Primary Line-Up:

• Garm - Vocals, Samples
• Steinar Sverd Johnsen - Keyboards, Piano
• Hellhammer - Drums
• Knut M. Valle - Guitars
• Skoll - Bass

Guest Musicians:

• Vortex (Simon Hestnæs) - Lead vocals on The Chaos Path, backing vocals on Master Of Disguise and Painting My Horror
• Carl August Tidemann - Additional lead guitars on Ad Astra and Of Nails And Sinners
• Idun Felberg - Cornet on Ad Astra
• AiwarikiaR (Erik Olivier Lancelot) - Flute on Ad Astra
• Svein Haugen - Double bass
• Vegard Johnsen - Violin
• Dorthe Dreier - Viola
• Hans Josef Groh - Cello

PROLOGUE

Arcturus was a supergroup of sorts featuring the renowned vocalist, Garm. Unfortunately they have recently disbanded but they've left a legacy of four albums and a DVD release. Like one of Garm's bands, Ulver, Arcturus' roots lie in black metal, but unlike Ulver, they did not delve into electronica. Instead they chose to march forth with their musical mastery into avant-garde territory. And indeed, there is no band which sounds like Arcturus - I feel they would be best described as theatrical evil freaky symphonic circus music.

La Masquerade Infernale is the second album and crowning achievement of Arcturus, a follow-up to Aspera Hiems Symfonia which is a symphonic black metal release. As Ulver did, Arcturus abandoned black metal, and took a wild turn and a deep plunge into untouched waters with this album. The piano and synths are the most important instruments here and are managed very well by Sverd, who is the primary composer for this album. Garm is also a critical part of the album - his vocal delivery varies greatly throughout. He goes from inane muttering to operatic vocals to whispered madness to reciting poetry. Garm is coupled with Vortex on several tracks, who would later go on to join Arcturus as a permanent vocalist. This isn't intended to downplay the instrumental contributions of Hellhammer, Skoll, Valle and the other guest musicians either - they all perform extremely well. What is clearly prevalent throughout La Masquerade Infernale, is the theatrical component of Arcturus - this is better conveyed on their Shipwrecked In Oslo live DVD. Garm comes across as an evil conjurer surrounded by his band which plays captivating and spellbinding music.

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