Takin' it Greek style

More continental sonic ugliness fo yo ass. (In case you didn't see it, here's a link to the comments of the last post, where the Zombi and Stephin Merritt reviews are finally up. I had to wait until today to get the text. I forgot to send it to myself and the original publisher neglected to put it online at all, the fuckers.)

Lunar Aurora - Zyklus: Here's a pretty obscure German bunch plying a sort of black metal that walks the line between necro and prog, not as individual as Frenchmen Deathspell Omega or Romanians Negura Bunget, but far more nuanced than something like recent Shining. De rigeur for this sort of black metal, Lunar Aurora achieve a hermetic but intriguing sound that's in no hurry to get anywhere fast. These guys aren't barreling down no highway to Hell - each track gets at least a minute of intro before sliding into the actual meat of the music, and three of the four songs are over ten minutes long. "Der Morgen" lumbers into view with a doomy Enslaved riff which gradually increases in speed until at six minutes, it's suddenly blasting away. The effect is very organic, slowly inflating until a furious black metal storm is upon you, and you don't realize it because you're lost in a mesmerizing, minimal post-rock melody and the pleasingly ambient web weaved by Lunar Aurora. The stealthy keys and guitarist Aran's demonic vocals, like most other components of this album, are somewhat obscured under studio treatments, tucked into the mix like hot coals in a towel, smoldering until they burn through. When you're not in a segue but in the thick of a song, the sound of Zyklus is actually quite "warm," instruments and tones bleeding together and blanketing your senses with droning, nihilistic despair - the tempting comfort of death itself. Having also heard their more recent Mond album, I think I prefer this era of Lunar Aurora's already lengthy career, as Mond has a cleaner, more aggressive approach which, although melodically and structurally creative, is more typical of modern black metal. In addition to the aforementioned acts, I would place Zyklus in the realm of Lunar Aurora's countrymen Nocte Obducta, the only other German band I know who is operating in this milieu of semi-progressive black metal, although those guys come off as more pretentious than genuinely cerebral. Definitely makes me wonder what else is cooking in Deutschland.
NEGATIVITY: -4 (removes you from the Earth for a while)

Molested - Stormvold: A rare EP by this pre-Borknagar death metal band. It's quite a find, and pretty fucked up. The music changes up as spastically as your average post-Dillinger math/grindcore, but often hammers away in a chaotic, overbearing manner reminiscent of "war metal" knuckledraggers like Revenge or Bestial Warlust, except good, with melodic Norwegian guitars rather than tuneless clattering. The drumming is absolutely insane, sometimes rocketing the whole mess forward and sometimes giving the impression that two different bands are playing at the same time. The growling vocals are not only super low, they have a weird mix that both isolates them and fades them into the background of a deliriously fragmented bonanza of riffing, often delivered with a tremolo black/death metal technique. Just when you get used to what's happening, the song ends. At first listen, the songs seem really haphazardly slapped together, but once each track gets going, a crazed logic appears that's ultimately more interesting than early Kataklysm, another demented bunch of which Molested reminds me. As a Borknagar fan, hearing Stormvold only increases my respect for Øystein Brun's creativity. I'm sure this racket would give most people a headache, but I think it kicks serious ass. Now I really want to hear their album, which is apparently more folkloric (all this craziness, plus fiddle and mouth harp?). For that, I would apparently have to pay more than $70 on eBay. Thankfully, some kind dark soul just upped it.
NEGATIVITY: -3.5 (fun for scaring old ladies who are driving next to you)

Necromantia/Varathron - Black Arts Lead To Everlasting Sins: After the last post got me thinking about Rotting Christ, I read an article about the Greek black metal scene and decided to dip another toe into it. Another rare item, this 1994 split between two of the scene's better known acts seemed like a good place to start. It looks like it's an expanded version of a 12" released two years prior, where each band only contributed four tracks of what is on offer here. I already knew Necromantia from their decent IV: Malice record, although this split was the first I heard of their vaunted earlier era. Necromantia is unique in that they use no guitars, just bass and eight-string bass. Their sometimes doomy, sometimes frantic music is evocative if not extremely exciting, but they're pretty kvlt, often beloved by the sort of people who enjoy unbearable noise like Beherit or Black Witchery. With no guitar, it often sounds like something's wrong - the adequate recording's lack of middle range highlights the feeling that these nutters are missing a tooth. They're all avant-garde, too: a saxophone oozes into the somewhat jazzy mood piece "Evil Prayers," and at several points the experimental head-trip "De Magia Veterum" descends into a cacophany of reverbed hooting and cackles. Those tracks, along with the loping, ritualistic atmosphere of the entire Necromantia side, invoke the long-lost weirdos Evol and young Moonspell at their most arcane, free-form and theatrical, mixed with the slow and filthy style of the first Samael albums. Now, this was my first exposure to Varathron, who generally play as slowly and methodically as Necromantia and use a similar style of buried, whispery growling vocals. But they have guitars and their music is more like Rotting Christ - at the time of this recording, Varathron's bassist was also in RC. Varathron are more straightforward, almost impressionistic in their spare, repetitious employment of classic metal guitar melodies (pieces of Priest, Fate and Dio-era Sabbath mostly), and they also speed up once in a while. The exploratory guitar work is pretty hypnotic, such as the caterwauling solos that intermittently commandeer "The Tressrising of Nyarlathotep" (great title, eh?), evoking a pastoral malice with an equally classy, disorienting and unique sound. Tacked onto the end is Varathron's 1991 One Step Beyond Dreams 7", which ends the disc with an awesome display of black and thrash tempos mixed with the sort of somber, ethereal melody that seems the sole province of occult Greek metal acts from the '90s. This is recommended for those seeking something dark and idiosyncratic. Now I need to check out some old Septic Flesh, On Thorns I Lay and Nightfall...
NEGATIVITY: Necromantia: -3.5 (obstinately bizarre, no concessions to the mainstream)/Varathron: -3 (slightly more tuneful, just as recondite)