Virus - The Agent That Shapes The Desert

For the last thirty-one days of the year I'm planning to do a review on a 2011 album every day. It'll get me in the writing mood and serve as a break from studying for finals.

 

Tritones out the ass. That's what Norway's Virus' The Agent That Shapes The Desert sounds like. This agent is rhythmically jazzy and dissonant, with a pinch of metal. Although pretty much avant-garde rock, Virus has made quite the name for themselves in the metal scene as well. In this way they're kind of like Porcupine Tree after they assimilated a bunch of pretentious metalheads into their fanbase.

Except Virus is significantly better than slightly above-average progressive rock.

The Agent That Shapes The Desert is a very cohesive album. The instruments are all extremely bright, noticeable, and really pull you in. There's a degree of production here that's unprecedented in this kind of music, and it captures the atmosphere that the music is trying to convey perfectly, making it extremely memorable. Songs like "Chromium Sun" open with a galloping (no not triplets) bassline and keep the tritones and major-sevenths flowing. Others like "Continental Drift" manage this speed over slower chord progressions, creating a slow-moving, geologic feel to the music. The deep bassy distortion at the beginning of the latent track "Dead Cities Of Syria" is addicting and droning, and the song builds nicely on that strong foundation. All the songs are very well-crafted, and it really conveys the precambrian-mesopotamian theme of the album well.

Much to my dismay they had to ruin the fun and add in some of the more boring vocals I've heard this year to each and every track. They almost have an operatic-symphonic quality to them similar to other progressive rock or metal bands, and I always tend to find this style hit or miss. Sure sometimes it's fitting and you can hear the lyrics clearly, but the sheer enunciation of the vocals really kills the atmosphere. Had this been an instrumental avant-garde or even math rock album it probably would've been a bit more tolerable. There are some instances where I feel they work really well though - "Parched Rapids" comes to mind first. The song's innate dissonance and the good use of rests resonates with Czarl's off-kelter vocal approach.

If you're looking for well-written avant-garde rock with several degrees of jazz, metal, and progressive music in its sound, I wouldn't put it past The Agent That Shapes The Desert for it to be exactly what you're looking for.

7.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	The Agent That Shapes The Desert
2.	Continental Drift
3.	Chromium Sun
4.	Red Desert Sand
5.	Intermission: Furnace Creek
6.	Dead Cities Of Syria
7.	Where The Flame Resides
8.	Parched Rapids
9.	Call Of The Tuskers

Blut Aus Nord - 777 - The Desanctification

Blut Aus Nord already has two albums in the 777 trilogy under their belt: 777 - Sect(s) and 777 - The Desanctification. The first featured dizzying guitar leads, chromatic riffing, and was interestingly coined the "spiritual sequel to The Work Which Transforms God." I don't know if I agree with that statement since The Work Which Transforms God might be my favorite Blut Aus Nord album, but Sect(s) is certainly worthy of the distinction. I posted a few months back about The Desanctification, and now that it's out, it might just be time to review it.

What an album cover. Kind of has that psychedelic cult, almost mystical vibe to it. It certainly fits the music pretty well. Knowing that this is an "experimental" Blut Aus Nord album (what else would you expect from French black metal?), this album works well as a whole. The Desanctification is naturally a continuation of Sect(s), but with a bit more atmosphere and less flashy leads. Some of the tracks are a bit long-winded and dragging, while others completely envelop you in the sound of primordial chaos.

And if this is the sound of chaos, it sounds oh-so-good. Songs like "Epitome VIII" exemplify this perfectly. There's aggressive drumming, winding riffs, interesting time signatures, and triumphant leads that all meld together over the span of six minutes. "Epitome VIII" is probably the most vocal-intensive track on The Desanctification as well, although the vocals kind of take a back seat to all of the riffing and serve as the atmospheric equivalent of a subtle synth. Not that they're programmed or fake or anything, but they really don't stand out at all. This holds true for the rest of the album as well.

If that doesn't bother you, then you may be in for a treat if you can get over the droning boredom of certain tracks. The opener contains a memorable riff that drags on for a bit too long. That's a recurring complaint throughout all of The Desanctification and one I can't forgive them for. These guys are clearly talented musicians and know how to write some unique material, but beating a riff to death in the name of atmosphere is something that irks me to no end. On another note there's some powerful dissonance on "Epitome X" and some interesting industrial sounds on "Epitome XI," although once again the latter drags a bit. The finale, "Epitome XIII" is probably the best single track on the album and the only one to really rival "Epitome VIII." The track takes all the twisting, winding riffy goodness and combines those traits with atonal chromaticism (a recurring theme for sure, but here it's done so well). It blends all the sounds explored by Blut Aus Nord perfectly. If only the rest of the album were as memorable and less boring.

7.25 out of 10
EDIT: I shouldn't review when I'm so damn tired. So many errors in this one.


Tracklisting:

1. Epitome VII
2. Epitome VII
3. Epitome IX
4. Epitome X
5. Epitome XI
6. Epitome XII
7. Epitome XIII

Flourishing - The Sum Of All Fossils

During this past month I've been spinning Flourishing's The Sum Of All Fossils. It's easily one of the less mentioned bands in this year's teeming pool of death metal debuts, but The Sum Of All Fossils easily deserves so much more talk.

This year has seen a lot of death metal debuts and releases by established artists, but Flourishing tops nearly all of them with their convoluting passages. As I mentioned, Flourishing is a death metal band. Their style could be described as experimental, but that would be comparing them to some of metal's lowest common denominators (Unexpect I'm looking at you). Here you have something much more special and worthy of being considered as such.

Flourishing's experimental, nearly progressive brand of death metal is comparable to fantastic acts such as Gorgut's and Vengeful's, but with it's own unique flare. The music is densely layered and composed of winding passages that are not afraid to abruptly change key in the middle of a track. This makes for a fully engaging listen and one that you can spin time and time again and still find new nuances. There's also a crushing, tectonic rhythm provided by the mid-paced but powerful drumming and the deep, organic basslines. It has what is also easily one of the most rich productions and one of the best mixing jobs of the last year.

The Sum Of All Fossils begins with one of the faster tracks on the album "A Thimble's Worth." The pacing isn't breakneck ala Origin or Gigan (on certain tracks), but is more midpaced for technical death, and it works so much better. Tracks like "In Vivid Monochrome" and "Momentary Senses" are bound to be technical death classics, with their interesting structures and key switching. That's another one of the highlights of Flourishing's well-composed music: they often play major as well as minor scales, which is always fun to hear in death metal when done with the traditional sense of relentless aggression. This brings out a lighter side of the band that's reminiscent of Anata's more progressive tracks. The lyrics are generally positive to fit with the brighter scales, and they also have a lot of introspective qualities similar to Gorguts and Ulcerate. However those qualities get kind of awkward on "By Which We're Cemented," where there's an odd clean vocal section. That one part is not enough to ruin the song though, and the rest of the song and album grinds along like continental plate on mantle. There's another one of these sections on "Momentary Senses," but it's fleeting and laced with effects, making it at least bearable. The rest of the song is a writhing primordial monstrosity and that major scale brightness I mentioned earlier shows itself with just over minute left in the track. There's actually an interesting, grind-esque rhythm on "Summary," and the closer is a fittingly dissonant conclusion to one of the best albums released in 2011. Definitely check this one out.

9.5 out of 10


Tracklisting:

1.	A Thimble’s Worth
2.	The Prospects of Rejection
3.	By Which We’re Cemented
4.	In Vivid Monochrome
5.	Momentary Senses
6.	Fossil Record
7.	Summary
8.	As if I Bathed in Excellence

The Kvlt Is Trending + Blut Aus Nord - 777 - Sect(s)

In the past few days a lot has happened. I essentially sat on my ass, played some vidya games, Skyped a few people, and realized that I am not ever going to get a job this Summer no matter how many places I applied to. A friend recently claimed he's trying to start a business, so maybe there's some hope after all. Oh and Seth Putnam died. RIP although I'll never get the appeal of half-baked "offensive for the sake of it" grind.

In lieu of and completely unrelated to all of the excitement, I decided that it's been quite a while since I got my black robe and wizard hat on. To remedy my situation I downloaded a bunch of black metal albums, and what the hell has happened to the lovably (and sometimes laughably) evil genre that I used to love?

All decked out and ready to KRIEG!!

"Cascadian" black metal and Deathspell Omega happened, that's what.

Now obviously this only applies to a small portion of black metal. Any real black metal listener knows there's hundreds of artists out there who still keep the spirit of the genre alive (dead?). However it seems that this small portion has broken through to the mainstream metal community with relative success. I mean yeah sure Dimmu Burger and trash bands like Ov Hell are winning Norwegian Grammys, but nobody takes those bands seriously in the metal community. This is a whole different deal.

"Cascadian" black metal, as it's known, is essentially black metal with shoegaze, dark ambient, neo-folk, or post-rock elements thrown in. I'm sure you can recall a few bands by name who play in this trend-setting style. Altar Of Plagues, Agalloch, newcomer Petrychor, Skagos, Wolves In The Throne Room, Lantlôs, etc. I wouldn't necessarily include bands like Alcest or Les Discrets who are both much more rock than metal, but like Porcupine Tree it seems every metal listener loves them both even if they're both piss-poor artists (I do like Alcest's debut as a shoegaze/rock album though).

I actually like a lot of this stuff although I'd never say it's as amazing as others might, but it's becoming irritating when every new black metal band I come across shares some similarities to those aforementioned bands. Some of the more "reputable" bands in this sub-subgenre are absolute garbage like Wolves In The Throne Room, but that's beside the point. I feel like the praise most of these bands get is unfounded. It's like some listeners get a pre-conceived notion of artfulness from these bands, when it's only present in superficial quantities. Maybe it's their beards, who knows?

The bearded face of kvlt to come?

The majority of these bands seem to be copying and pasting the same formula that made their peers successful, and a lot of their success seems to be limited to pockets of the internet where emo-nerds congregate to listen to the next "expressive" black metal album. I swear it's in the beards, man.

This brings me to my next point: that the amount of Deathspell Omega worshippers is off the fucking charts. I love Deathspell Omega as much as the next person, and their (at the time) unique dissonant sound is a staple of the French black metal scene. Now you've got tons of bands sounding like them, for better or worse. Soli Diaboli Gloria, Glorior Belli, Corpus Christii (the black metal one, obviously), Arkhon Infaustus, Blaze Of Perdition, Nightbringer, etc. I like Glorior Belli. Arkhon Infaustus and Annthennath are cool too, but damn the new Blaze Of Perdition is so predictable and boring. The new Axis Of Perdition (death/grind/black/noise/dark ambient) is even reminiscent of Deathspell Omega, but at least they did it right. Some would even go as far to include Blut Aus Nord, who technically started the whole thing along with Deathspell Omega, on their fantastic 2003 release The Work Which Transforms God. Recently they released 777-Sects as a direct continuation of The Work Which Transforms God and it's pretty sweet. At least a few good things came out of this trend.

And now I realize why I stayed away from black metal for so long. The genre has been heading this way for quite some time, yet it doesn't seem like the flow of "Cascadian" black metal or Deathspell Omega knockoffs is going to stop anytime soon either. Luckily there's always bands like Dødsengel who are revitalizing the Norwegian scene with some unique flavor, and there's still a bunch of original artists who are influenced by Deathspell Omega without sounding exactly like them. Not that they'd ever be able to top Fas anyway. I just felt like I had to rant about black metal due to the hypocrisy surrounding some of it's listeners who pretend they're kvlt when all they can talk about is trendy artists like Wolves In The Throne Room. Then you have Pitchfork-endorsed trendy shit like Liturgy and Krallice, but that's a rant for another day...

Here's Blut Aus Nord's 777-Sects. I might write a review on this album and The Work Which Transforms God soon.

 

Tracklisting:

1.	Epitome I
2.	Epitome II
3.	Epitome III
4.	Epitome IV
5.	Epitome V
6.	Epitome VI