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Blut Aus Nord: MoRT

23/02/11 || Khlysty

Yes, again, it’s one a’ them deleted reviews that I saw fit to write again, so that they will be contained to GD archives for all eternity, or, at least, until our Master and Tyrant has another a’ them “have-to-prune-the-reviews” fits. Well, the old and now deleted review of “MoRT” was one of the things that made me wanna write for this here site: it was written by a guy (don’t actually remember who…) who really knew his music theory and was able to analyze what Vindsval and co. did here to create such a sick and – sometimes – downright scary sonicscape. The fact that his writing style was exceptional was a bonus point and that review was for me a template about what a good review should be like.

Alas, I completely lack the former staffer’s musical knowledge, so my review’s gonna be more mundane: instead of “diminished thirds” and “augmented chords”, I’m gonna use expletives like “fucking brilliant” and “totally sickness-inducing” to describe BaN’s music in this here little record. If you don’t like it, ask the Lord K. to retrieve the older review. Me, I cannot help you with that.

Anyway, “MoRT” (which is an acronym for “Metamorphosis of Realistic Theories”) was the point where BaN decided to completely abandon all preconceived ideas of what black metal should sound like and dive fist-over-asshole into a void of dissonance and totally sick atmospherics. This tendency had already been made obvious with the brilliant “The Work Which Transforms God” L.P. and the totally left-brained (containing an exceptional track of dub psychosis…) “Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity” E.P. Well, with “MoRT” Vindsval and cohorts go one step further and completely rewrite the canon of black metal.

The first thing one has to know about this beast is that it’s pretty slow. No blasting whatsoever. Everything moves in a middle-of-the-road rhythm, much like, say, walking kinda briskly inside a huge mausoleum. Of course, this being BaN, the time signatures are ALfuckingWAYS FUBAR, slithering from a typical 4/4 or 2/4 to more exotic territory (5/4? 7/4? Don’t know and fuck if I really care to learn…). This happens all the time and it really fucks up the perception the listener gets from the music. And, oh, what music are we talking ‘bout!

Vindsval has stratified here at least three or four guitars, all distorted to a sea-sickness sound, playing different stuff, which, when mixed together, create a sound that’s really yucky in the most negative sense of the word: whammy-bar dive-bombings, single note runs, chords that-should-not-be, slugs-slowly-slithering-up-my-torso arpeggios… everything in music that can induce a sense of unease and sickness and uncleanliness to the human psyche is used to create an effect of continuous perception disruption. This is dissonance at its most pure and unadulterated, a whirlpool of rotted water and things that one only hopes are dead and disintegrating inside it.

In my opinion, “MoRT” has to be seen as a one-song-broken-into-eight-unnamed-“chapters” effort. The ambiance the music creates throughout the whole length of the album is uniform and uniformly dark, desperate and ugly and the small illbient parts at the end or at the beginning of each “chapter” only work as codas towards the overall sickness of the record. The vocals are spare and deeply-buried in the mix and act as another stratum of the whole mix, the bass is completely unintelligible and the drums sound synthetic, even if they’re played by a human being (which I highly doubt, that is, the “human being” part…). The production is sterile and emanates a mechanical/industrial/inhuman feel, as if Skynet recorded and mixed the whole thing, while plotting away the destruction of all humanity on earth.

As a side note, before actually hitting the stores, a version of “MoRT” leaked and, by all accounts, had no relation to the final product: was it supposed to be the second part of the record? Did Vindsval get pissed off by the leak and released, say, the outtakes of the recording as the actual L.P.? Don’t know, and not having heard the leaked version, I cannot comment on it. What I can say, though, is that “MoRT” – which has been burdened with characterizations that range from “avant garde” to “alternative metal” (whaddafuckisit????) – is one mindfuck of a listen. While retaining the basic atmospherics of good black metal, the music is as far removed from the actual stylings of the genre as possible, going for something that, at least at the time of its release, was unique and unheard-of. Ultimately, it’s up to the listener to decide whether this is his/her cuppa tea. To me, though, it represents one of BaN’s greatest achievements and one of the best extreme metal records of the past decade.

8,5

Information
Released: 2006
Label: Candlelight Records
Website: Blut Aus Nord MySpace
Band
Vindsval: guitars, vocals
GhÖst: bass
W.D. Feld: drums, electronics, keyboards

Tracklist
01. Chapter 1
02. Chapter 2
03. Chapter 3
04. Chapter 4
05. Chapter 5
06. Chapter 6
07. Chapter 7
08. Chapter 8

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