1914 - Viribus Unitis
Napalm Records
Here's a Ukrainian Black Metal / Blackened Death Doom act who I got into mid-way through their career. This five piece band started out in 2014 and their music is themed around World War One. Now just for the record the two bands I respect the most who are into the whole WW1 thing are MINENWERFER (USBM) and GOD DETHRONED (from the Netherlands) who came out with their Blackened Death WW1 trilogy years ago from 2009 to 2017.
My introduction to 1914 came in 2018 with their second full length The Blind Leading the Blind. I didn't think too much for that album considering that it did not go beyond what their peers created. Oddly enough, because they're on Napalm Records, I got their next album Where Fear and Weapons Meet from 2021. That album is where I thought they really got their shit together.
This latest one, Viribus Unitis, the band continues where they left off. In other words producing a compelling piece of work via story telling with sounds ranging from the symphonic range of Black Metal, melodic Doom and of course Blackened Death Metal. The release is book ended by some old traditional WW1 songs. There's a few sound-bites intermixed within the album. But there is a cool bottom line to it all.
Because this release has so much variety and contrasts it's basically a concept album like their last one. The band invited a few guest vocalists to interpret some songs. On one of the latter cuts it's totally Gothic influenced Doom and it was easy to identify MY DYING BRIDE's vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe as the vocalist.
Now be that all which it is, Viribus Unitis has a good quality late night sound. It wants to be a true tale of war but ends up being a romantic melodic styled version. It's not horrific enough which bands like MINENWERFER do in a serious Black Metal style. In the end it's decent.
https://napalmrecords.com/deutsch/
LISTEN HERE:
https://x1914x.bandcamp.com/album/viribus-unitis
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