Rating: 9.6

Country: France

Genre: Black Metal

Record Label: Candlelight Records

Release Date: 1988

Track list:
1. Acceptance (Aske)
2. Disciple's Libration (Lost in the Nine Worlds)
3. The Cosmic Echoes of Non-Matter (Immaterial Voices of the Fathers)
4. Translucent Body of Air (Sutta Anapanasati)
5. The Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)
6. ...the Meditant (Dialogue With the Stars)
7. The Alcove of Angels (Vipassana)
8. Antithesis of the Flesh (...and Then Arises a New Essence)
9. Elevation

Band Website: Blut aus Nord

Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

Blut aus Nord has always been a band that likes to do the unexpected. With almost each new release serving up something that no one else was doing (with The Mystical Beast of Rebellion being an exception to this by filtering Transilvanian Hunger through a Thornsian lens) and always doing something completely different from any of their previous releases while still staying within the confines of the black metal genre. While they had been going through an almost deconstructionist phase in the previous few years, bending what black metal stands for, testing and stretching its boundaries as far as possible, with the new album they go back to an earlier form. Dialogue with the Stars is a sequel to Fathers of the Icy Age in more than name alone, since this could have come right afterwards.

The epic riffs, dynamic composition and vast, mythological aura of part I are back in full effect, though they are coupled with quite a number of techniques culled from their more industrial albums, with plenty of broken chords, discordant tremolo lines and eerie synths. This combined with some breathtaking leads, atmospheric acoustics and the large, echoing sound, creates an utterly mesmerizing album. In keeping with its subtitle, the atmosphere projected through the music is of a more mystical and less earthly bent than on part I and seems a bit more timeless as well. It carries on its predecessor's at times beautiful and at other times dreadful sound and is one of the few albums I can think of to sound both warm and cold.

It's interesting how, even though this is a “return to the roots” kind of deal, Memoria Vetusta II is still a highly forward-thinking album. There are many subtle progressive moments hidden in plain sight, in the dynamic way that the songs are composed and the manner in which the riffs are written. Aside from Blut aus Nord's own back-catalogue, I can only think of Enslaved's last two demos and debut to pull off this totally unassuming progressive black metal style to such effect, where an album is filled to the brim with standards-defying material, but composed and organised in such a natural and cohesive way that their novelty doesn't detract from the actual music (see for example later Dodheimsgard (or DHG as all the cool dawgs call it now) for the reverse of this and how much it inevitably sucks because all the “avant-garde-isms” stand around screaming how progressive they are amidst a swill of mediocre riffs). In this sense it perfectly continues the project of the early second wave, of making dark, experimental metal that went against the stagnation of the wider extreme metal genre while never losing its metal edge.

Memoria Vetusta II is stunning from start to finish and can be appreciated on a number of different levels, from its narrative progression to its compositional strength, from the impeccable guitar playing to the atmosphere you could get lost in. It's just complete in each and every way a piece of music should be, every little piece of the picture has its place, there are no superfluous moments or holes, and you can clearly hear the passion that went into writing this monumental album in every single note. It's of course impossible to say in advance whether this can be the album of the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if nothing comes along to top this.

April 30, 2009