Flamen "Furor Lunae" CD

"Fvror Lvnae" was recorded & engineered between 2015 and 2018

Vocals Additional In Bulgarian Language by Alexander Ivanov 

Medieval black metal has been kind of a thing the last couple years. Taking influence from older forms of erudite music is not new in black metal. We all know Dissection and Sacramentum did this back in the 90’s. In recent years we have seen bands double down on taking influence from even older traditions in music. The most popular of the bunch of course is Obsequiae but bands from France have been doing it for quite some time as well for example bands like Aorlhac, Sühnopfer and I’d say that Belenos is the first band that took melodic black metal in this direction back in 1996 with their first demo.
Flamen thus is part of a movement that has been on going for some time already and are not just Obsequiae but Italian. I’d argue that if one paid close attention it would be fairly apparent that this band is more closely related to the bands from France but also Graveland and Nocternity. Stylistically it is readily apparent that Flamen are from Italy, of course pretty much all the vocals are Italian but also the guitarwork quite clearly takes from Italian composers of yore. The Graveland and Nocternity influence also seeps in here in that while the melodies themselves might be Italian but the cadence of the playing itself clearly takes from them. The use of synths seems to be taken from the Greeks. This becomes especially apparent during the last song. Heck it is almost a Kawir cover.
Flamen gets quite close to making one of the black metal albums of 2019 but falls just short however. While the riffs are mostly very good to excellent, the songwriting is a bit predictable at times. Most of the songs follow kind of the same format with an intro played on acoustic guitars before the song shifts into black metal. The whispered clean vocals are not as annoying as those usually are but still I’d rather have actual singing. The programmed drums are some of the better sounding ones I’ve heard. It does mean however that the drum patterns don’t really do anything except back the rest of the music I would not say that this is a big issue however. The rest of the record sounds fine sonically speaking. The mix is done pretty well and the guitars sound powerful.
Flamen has come a long way from their way more obviously Graveland and Belenos worshipping debut EP. While not a modern classic I do consider this album one of the must listens in terms of black metal from 2019.

Sample: