Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II

Blut aus Nord have delivered perhaps the prog metal record of the year. This is ironic, given their general categorization as black metal. Then again, this isn’t your big brother’s black metal. Early efforts were requisitely frostbitten, but The Work Which Transforms God transformed the band. Blut aus Nord became an abyss of disharmonic guitars and dissociated drum machines. Its trough (or peak, depending on viewpoint) was 2006’s MoRT (reviewed here), one of the scariest records ever made, in any genre.

The Cosmic Echoes of Non-Matter

Odinist (reviewed here) stepped back from the abyss with more grounded guitars. Now the band has returned to Western tonalities with a sequel to 1996’s Memoria Vetusta I. The result is exquisite. All those years suppressing melodies must have built up quite a reserve. Solos soar; songs perorate; chord progressions wax ornate. (The pedestrian programmed drums, which beg for human interpretation, are the only blot.) De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas this is not. But Blut aus Nord engage in the same creative destruction that Mayhem did in the ’90s. Mayhem destroyed death metal and themselves, and ironically laid the groundwork for black metal orthodoxy.

Recognizing that orthodoxy is anathema to black metal, Blut aus Nord have reconfigured the form. They destroy the old order by building a new one. It’s not revolutionary; the return to conventional tonality is classicist. But music goes in cycles, and Blut aus Nord have the wheel firmly in hand. They’ve just steered back onto Euclidean planes.

Buy:
The End
Candlelight
Plastic Head