BLUT AUS NORD – ethereal horizons – DIGICD

“I’ve learned over the years that, when it comes to my own musical creativity, the truth of today is rarely the truth of tomorrow.” Vindsval

The wonderful 16th album from legendary Avant Black Metal paragons BLUT AUS NORD is the culmination of a 30-year vision – as mainman Vindsval connects each element of the band’s history to launch yet another intrepid exploratory evolution.

“Ethereal Horizons” is BLUT AUS NORD fully realised: richer, deeper, grander, more enigmatic and simultaneously more human than ever. Intermeshing the earthen and the futuristic as a vessel for the dark dreamer, soaring and ascending to vivid realms.

After spending the preceding few years immersed in the wyrd and uneasy world of Lovecraft, this guitars-forward and melodious new album feels more akin to the organic, intoxicating terrain of 2014’s “Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry” or 2019’s “Hallucinogen” – a cosmic and consonant antidote to our incessant psychic battering from the bleak, cacophonous biosphere in which we reside.

“Ethereal Horizons” incorporates otherworldliness from all eras of BAN – traces of churning dissonance, subtle industrialised elements, the weeping of celestial leads, V’s spectral & subliminal snarl – but brings in a suite of new and more grounded feels too. Far-reaching melodic themes turn inward and outward, frequently resolving into the swing of classic, prog and post rock. The warmth of swirling psych-organ and expanses of kosmische synth provide a bed for emotive themes to build and release into full-throttle ruthlessness. Vocal stylings are wide-ranging as ever, utilising the distinctive cloudbusting cleans and choirs, but this time with a lazer-focus on wistful transcendent melodies, refrains and even out-and-out hooks.

Essential.

Recommended if you like: ENSLAVED, EMPEROR, ULVER (Bergtatt era), KING CRIMSON…