Fourth full-lenght from the Polish experimental black metallers FURIA! The band have been dwelling within the Polish black metal underground for a period of time in which this enigma have clearly spearheaded themselves as one of most prominent acts within the scene. “Nocel” consists of 8 brand new morose and mournful hymns that displayed a scenario where fury and hatred are the two dominating emotions. They rumble gloomily and yawn with methane.
Furia is a band I was familiar with for a good few years prior to the release of Nocel. I spent some time listening to their 2nd full-length, Grudzień za grudniem, but that album didn’t grow on me enough and so I mentally shelved Furia for what might have been forever until the winter of 2014/2015 when I heard Nocel. I don’t remember the circumstances other than the fact that I loved to play Nocel right after arriving at work, when it was still dark outside. The music helped me in the transition from nightly doziness to daily work routines. I literally played this album each and every morning through and through until the winter was gone. And then I finally comprehended Furia to the extent that I could revisit their back catalogue and reacquaint myself with it, this time delving deeper into the music, which entailed purchasing the band’s whole discography. But it was Nocel that served me as the key to Furia.
Furia’s black metal has always been full of melody and groove, with thick and low guitars and deep sounding rhythm section, so nothing like “Norwegian forest black metal” of early 1990s where the production was dry with thin guitar sound, cardboard drums and non-existent bass. Furia has always had the thing for getting the best possible sound, which meant multi-layered depth and lots of low tones. Although Nocel does retain these qualities, it goes another step forward with the tribal-sounding drums and more developed groove. “Opętaniec”, the album’s opening track, is an excellent display of all characteristic nuances displayed on the album. It starts with slow, doom-like introduction and appropriate chanting courtesy of Furia’s mastermind Nihil. But soon the song picks up speed, which is mainly due to guitarwork, as the drums do not go into blast beats, pummeling slower instead. Herein lies the key to the feel of the album: guitar wall of sound, changing tempo and drums following, but 2 paces behind in faster parts. Thus the music becomes richer – groovy, spatial, almost 3D in a way that it is easy to submerge oneself in it (not only if listening to Nocel on surround audio system). The power of groove works best in “Zamawianie drugie”, whose structure is overly simplified – vocals consist of 2 phrases only, one of which is repeated over and over throughout the 4 minutes of the song’s entire length. The music follows the vocal line here, with only slight divergence here and there, thus achieving trance-like feeling through repetition. And that riff is one hell of a headbanger!
The first 3 songs on the album serve a purpose of preparing the listener for what comes next. If you don’t feel symbiosis with the music now, Nocel is not for you – it’s as simple as that. Because the middle section of the album consists of songs of extensive length (esp. “Niezwykła nieludzka nieprzyzwoitość” which clocks over 13 minutes) and complicated structure, with abundance of space for jamming, although not in the jazz meaning of the word – here even the more open, loose parts must adhere to the general principle, i.e. the rhythmic groove. And you’re sure to get a lot of it, as the lyrics generally are scant on Nocel (maybe with exception of the opening and the closing tracks). This is where Furia makes the most significant departure from their black metal approach which was never conservative, but it is on Nocel that it attains the experimental tinge which will be further developed on their next album, Księżyc milczy luty”. Perhaps the harbinger of the shift in the musical direction was the new guitarist, Artur Rumiński, who replaced Voldtekt prior to writing and recording of Nocel as half of the guitar duet with the singer Nihil. Speaking of Nihil, the lyrics (which are written and sung in Polish as always in case of Furia) are very interesting and at the same time vague, meaning allow various ways of interpretation. Themes revolve around solitude, shamanism, existentialism, etc. It definitely is helpful to understand them, but it is not mandatory in order to get to like the album.
Nocel ends with “Ogromna noc” and the title of the song appears in the first verse of the opening track on the album (“Opętaniec”). “Ogromna noc” starts with lyrics “Księżyc milczy” which shall make two thirds of the title of Furia’s next album, one that cannot be comprehended without full understanding of Nocel – the transitory album between Furia’s more traditional black metal beginnings and the experimental future where, as some claim, their metal no longer needs the “black” adjective to describe the music.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=lUdZSTx7YXI
