Excellent Black Metal from Finland. One of the most promising Black Metal hordes nowadays.
released by Hammerbund available on CD
Released in January / February, 2013 as an unholy alliance between BLEICHMOND TONSCHMIEDE and the HAMMERBUND.
This masterpiece is published in Black steel as a limited Jewel Case CD.
In my estimation, it doesn't get a whole hell of a lot better than the contemporary Finnish black metal scene. The national obsession with creating absolutely delicious, triumphant tremolo melodies, coupled with a punky approach to rhythm, has put a unique yet traditional spin on the classic second wave Norwegian sound, simultaneously managing to create catchier music with more delightful melodies than the Norwegians could usually muster while managing to avoid the sometimes saccharine Swedish melodic sensibility and that same country's penchant for mixing death metal influences into their melodic explorations, resulting in a more purely black metal approach to their odes to the victory of darkness over light. The power of this ethos has clearly been felt elsewhere, as there have been a number of acts in Germany especially who, in recent years, have taken up a decidedly Finnish way of playing black metal.
Of all of the excellent recent Finnish black metal bands, Virvatulet are perhaps the most overtly uplifting and even "happy" that I have yet to encounter. The band expertly weaves together major and minor chords to create devastatingly effective melodies, played either as tremolo lines or simpler picked riffs, sometimes both intertwined at once. While there is nothing overtly post-rock about the band's sound, those familiar with that genre might recognize a familiar sense of clashing, confused emotions that's so perfectly rendered in chords like these. Hope and hopelessness bound together with light and darkness, a celebration of triumph and the sorrow of loss, at once and in equal measure. The production is raw but not at all muffled, drums and bass a bit further back in the mix to create a very guitar-forward sound that lets the joy and misery go unhindered, while frontman Torn pours his soul out through a ravaged, bleeding throat. "Revontulia Seuraten" is particularly impressive, sounding more like the climax of a veteran band's magnum opus rather than merely one of four total songs yet committed to tape by a young band of guys who, as far as I can tell, have no other musical endeavors or experience outside of this project. Blisteringly beautiful stuff.
Gratzug are one of those Finnfluenced German black metal bands I mentioned earlier. The potency of this influence is especially palpable when you take Gratzug's two tracks here and contrast them with the band's own full-lengths; I'm sure you'll notice, like I did, that Virvatulet's overbearing focus on those purely emotional melodies has spilled over into the Gratzug tracks, making them even more Finnish-sounding than the band's usual material. A portion of the uplifting melody quotient gets delivered with skyward-reaching ethereal synths, especially during the softer parts, while the guitars veer back and forth between those exultant tremolo melodies and darker bits of powerchord riffing. First track "Narrenfeuer" does a really excellent job of carrying over Virvatulet's sound and transitioning it into Gratzug's slightly darker Germanic approach, but the real winner in the Gratzug material is the shift toward the more atmospheric bits in middle of the stunning closer "Der Pfad..." and the way that seesaw melody erupts out of your speakers at the end of the song. It acts like an emotional centrifuge, pulling apart the uplifting and melancholic sides of the coin and separating them into minute quanta of pure feeling that yank you back and forth as the notes bob up and down.
The net effect of this absolutely stellar split is a state of being completely emotionally exhausted, yet tingling in anticipation for more Virvatulet material. At least Gratzug have the common decency of having several full-length albums with which we can sate ourselves during the wait!
Sample:
Sample Virvatulet:
Sample Gratzug:
