The Foundry

Cutting edge contemporary heaviness displayed and discussed. By Bryan Camphire. With Vitrun Carpe Noctem return after a five year spell and exceed the high standards set on their excellent previous full length, In Terra Profugus. The six songs on offer

Cutting edge contemporary heaviness displayed and discussed.

By Bryan Camphire.

Artwork by Stephen Wilson

Carpe Noctem - Vitrun
Iceland. 6 songs, 52 minutes, Code 666, October 5th, 2018.

With Vitrun Carpe Noctem return after a five year spell and exceed the high standards set on their excellent previous full length, In Terra Profugus. The six songs on offer this time around twist and turn with many minor key melancholic melodic sections. The guitars make ample use of ebow and and tremolo arm, bending stretching and smearing pitches all across the band's darkened soundscapes. The third track, "Og hofið fylltist af reyk" (and the temple was filled with smoke), is a highlight for me; midway through the music reaches a fever pitch, and just when it seems that the band could not possibly ratchet the tension any higher, the song explodes like so many collapsing steeples being reduced to ash. Vitrun is the Icelandic word for vision, and this combined with the record's harrowing album art might suggest that the band is interested in exploring themes of the tangled aspects of perception. This much is certain, Vitrun is a strangely beautiful offering from these high caliber black metal experimentalists.

Artwork by Babar Moghal.

Ars Magna Umbrae - Lunar Ascension
Poland. 8 songs, 36 minutes, Independent, October 5th, 2018.

This one man band's name translates as The Great Art of Shadow. What struck me most about this release upon first listen was the strange innovative guitar work. Sinister snaky lines evince feelings of dread from the very start. Subsequent listens revealed that Lunar Ascension places a heavy emphasis on composition, with strong dynamics and drastic tempo changes in nearly every song keeping things interesting. There is a murderousness on display here that’s reminiscent of early Blut Aus Nord. When looking for how black metal has moved forward in 2018, consider this record.

Artwork Mar.A.

Cultes des Ghoules - Sinister, or Treading the Darker Paths
Poland. 5 songs, 55 minutes, Hells Headbangers, September 23, 2018

"Is it you, my master, whatever your name is, or is it just me, filled with divine bliss?" If you want to be filled with divine bliss of which the singer of Cultes des Ghoules speaks, listen to Sinister. This is yet another excellent offering to the band's weird catalog of releases. Slow lurching repetitive mesmerizing music to listen to around a fire in the woods whilst making animal sacrifices to unholy divine beings. The guitars are toothy and full of grit. The bass cuts through the mix nicely and will set fists swinging. The drums are commanding and in the pocket sans frills. I like to think of this singer as what Ozzy might sound like if he began releasing music for the first time in present day Poland instead of, you know, being the great grand father of heavy metal. There is something special and mysterious about this release, the band's thirteenth offering in thirteen years...

Soul Dissolution - Stardust

By Hera Vidal. Oh, boy, where do I begin with this one? Right off the bat, don’t be fooled by the way the album cover and the first track look and sound like. It might be a set-up for something atmospheric and cosmic that sounds like

By Hera Vidal.


Oh, boy, where do I begin with this one?

Right off the bat, don’t be fooled by the way the album cover and the first track look and sound like. It might be a set-up for something atmospheric and cosmic that sounds like the myriad of atmospheric black metal without substance, but the track “Circle of Torment” jumps straight into what I like to call Woods of Ypres territory. While Woods of Ypres was highly atmospheric and sad, “Circle of Torment” takes that essence and dials it back a bit, emphasizing the bite of atmospheric black metal and letting it assault you throughout its run. Granted, there are moments of reprieve – there is a soft yet tonal reverb – but the music remains constant throughout the track, a testament to Soul Dissolution’s sonic aesthetic and their preference for long, repetitive passages of music that hold the listener’s attention. There are a lot of sonic references to Woods of Ypres; in fact, some of the guitar parts sound a little similar. However, they are able to add their own flair to it, as it lacks the deep, guttural sadness that was prevalent in Woods of Ypres.

Despite this, there is something highly emotive about the way everything is set up. Everything, from the musical structure to the actual layering of the music and vocals, is constructed to maximize the emotions behind it. There is awe, wonder, and confusion all rolled into a spectacular cohesion that you can’t shake off. You can only sit there in bewilderment and splendor as the album plays, as you hear footsteps walking through the woods, as you wonder where else Stardust will take you. As you come to that thought, Stardust takes a sharp right turn and begins to show you a more playful side to its music – if you can call anything atmospheric playful – one where you are allowed to bask in the guitars’ warm notes and the contrast between what sounds like the keyboards and the vocals that echo throughout the album.

Unlike most atmospheric black metal I am acquainted with, where either vocals or the instruments add to the atmosphere of the music, neither of those are actually what creates the atmosphere. Something about the presence of the album’s aesthetic and its triumphant mix of emotions and catharsis really speaks to the listener. There is something wonderfully bizarre that is worth paying attention to, something that hides underneath the orchestrations, the emotions, and the harsh vocals that reverbs through the music. Perhaps that is the key to Stardust: a bizarre feeling that cannot be explained and needs to be explored via this album as a medium.

All in all, Stardust is an album that takes everything atmospheric black metal stands for and throws it out the window, melding aesthetics together that creates substance and memorable music that stands with you until the end of its run. I will definitely come back to this album at a later time. However, in the meantime, I can only say good things about it. In the crossroads of bewilderment and aesthetic, Stardust exists, filling a void that I don’t think anyone saw until this moment.

Evoken - Hypnagogia

By Karen A. Mann. I admit I didn’t know much about World War I until recently. But with the recent centennial of the war, which began with the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, I’ve gained a new appreciation for this most grisly of wars

By Karen A. Mann

Artwork by Adam Burke.

I admit I didn’t know much about World War I until recently. But with the recent centennial of the war, which began with the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, I’ve gained a new appreciation for this most grisly of wars, in which national identities were born as empires collapsed. Millions of average men died in squalid trenches as horrifying new technologies, including the use of poisonous gas, the widespread use of the machine gun and the armored tank were deployed. Not only did the earth became a putrid wasteland of unburied corpses but the war was directly responsible for spreading the virulent Spanish Flu, which killed millions around the world. World War I was so bad that it was called the War to End All Wars, because people thought that certainly no war could be worse. Instead, the political instability unleashed continues, like an unbroken thread of terror, in parts of Europe and the Middle East to this day.

It’s against this hellish backdrop that New Jersey’s long-running elegiac funeral doom quintet Evoken have set their latest album, Hypnagogia. On a battlefield during that horrible war, an anonymous soldier muses bitterly on his impending death. He records his thoughts in a journal, then strikes a deal with a malevolent spirit to leave part of his soul behind to attach itself to -- and drive to suicide -- whomever chances to read the journal. With each successive death the spirit becomes stronger and more deadly, weaving an unbroken tale of terror through the century.

Evoken has always been completely unafraid to push the boundaries of metal further than they can go, and then some. I had the distinct pleasure of seeing them perform an experimental set with Merzbow for the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh back in 2013. Brian Sanders, who contributed cello for their 2012 release, Atra Mors, returns on Hypnagogia, and at times plays a starring role. The album begins with an ominous string arrangement from Sanders, along with a distant chorale. The feeling is deep, dark and foreboding; lush and natural. A peal of squalling feedback introduces the crushing mechanical elements, bringing to mind primitive iron tanks rolling over and subjugating all that is natural about the land. Through eight songs, the band chugs through scathing doom with gnarled, blackened bits, serpentine riffage and eerie keyboard melodies, and pastoral, mournful passages with evocative vocals and stately string arrangements.

The album includes two short instrumentals -- aptly titled "Hypnagogia" and "Hypnopompic," that act as interludes in the action and represent the soldier's death and rebirth. The term “hypnagogia” refers to hallucinations a lot of us experience in the moments just before sleep when our bodies are paralyzed but our minds are still active. By contrast, “hypnopompic” is when we have paralyzed hallucinations upon waking up. If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of the night thinking there’s an intruder in your bedroom and unsuccessfully tried to scream, you’ve had a hypnopompic hallucination. Both songs have a hallucinogenic, disorienting quality and provide fitting bookends to the album's most adventurous song, "Ceremony of Bleeding, " which features a haunting, operatic choir ensemble in the middle. The album’s final song, “The Weald of Perished Men,” begins with ambient noise of crickets, wind and the sound of digging before easing into a clean, uplifting guitar melody that weaves its way through the entire song. A mournful cello and keyboard passage follows, with the soldier questioning what will become of him, then segues into crushing guitars and scathing vocals.

Fittingly released on Nov. 9, just before the centenary of war’s end on Nov. 11, 2018, Hypnagogia is an elegantly bleak, yet strangely warm and uplifting, ode to one lonely, anonymous man who found an ingenious way to live on, while repaying the world for the futility of his death.