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BLUTVIAL - Mysteries of Earth
Heidens Hart Records
Last time I heard from this English black metal act was in 2009. To be specific that was when they released their debut full length, I Speak of the Devil, on Spinefarm Records. I have it by the way and it's a decent release. Over the years I never kept up with em. So here we have their third full length. Their last one was 2011's Curses Thorns Blood.
Why the long span of years between releases? Well because the members have other projects going on. Two guys are in CODE who are fairly busy. They also have a new drummer from the Dutch black metal act ISRATHOUM. I have an old CD by them as well. But enough about all of that.
If there's one thing I've learned over the years about English black metal, or UKBM for short, is that there is no cohesive or distinct sound from their scene. I mean you name a blackened sub genre and they have an example of it. Add to that the band actually sounds like they came from somewhere else as well as being just as good.
Which brings us back to this new one by BLUTVIAL. Mysteries of Earth sounds like Norwegian black metal circa 93/94. But of course it's been polished up to modern standards. Imagine if you will two dentists donned in corpse-paint, ala Gaahl formerly of GORGOROTH, boring holes into your skull. Sound good to you?
The vocals are creepy rasps. The riffs and lead work are icy and savage. Add to that the drum work is absolutely fantastic. BLUTVIAL has come out of nowhere and refined old school black metal meets 2018 without bending to outsiders wanting to progress beyond the genre parameters. All hail English black metal.
http://www.heidenshart.nl/
https://heidenshart.bandcamp.com/album/mysteries-of-earth
https://www.facebook.com/Blutvial
BLUTVIAL - Mysteries of Earth
Heidens Hart Records
I was definitely looking forward to hearing this one ever since I saw that Heidens Hart Records was releasing it. BLUTVIAL is an English black metal act that I first got into back in the late 2000s with their debut full length I Speak of the Devil. A few years later they came out with another one, Curses Thorns Blood. Both albums are incredible examples of the fusing of traditional raw black metal with, I guess you'd call it, more modern temperaments and non BM influences. All of which does not drive the music out of the genre.
So here we have Mysteries of Earth the band's first new release since 2013's Brythonic EP but still this is their first full length since 2011. As a whole all I can say after blasting this continuously for a week is that the basics of this band's past have not changed. That's a good thing because we're talking about that second wave rawness with intricately picked tremolo runs, blast beat brutality as well as some very high pitched and grim vocals. You couple all of that with the melodic portions that sweep in and around like ghostly swirls of atmospheric bodies.
Now with all of that I compare it with their two previous releases and it's easy to see how BLUTVIAL moved their own ways a notch more extreme. I was waiting for something in the bad progressive moves department to kick in but no. Their thrash and burn cuts rip flesh. The longer cuts push a more eloquent torture prospect. Feel the darkness.
http://www.heidenshart.nl/
https://heidenshart.bandcamp.com/album/mysteries-of-earth
https://www.facebook.com/Blutvial
ILDRA - Eoelland Re-issue
Heidens Hart Records
As we all know, popular music goes through trends and metal is not free of all of that. A decade ago extreme metal had a few legitimate trends going on. I say legitimate because the hipster crap a joke and not worthy. But yeah ten years ago you had the thrash revival petering out. Old school death metal was making a come back and is still going strong today. You also had the rise of bands into pagan folk metal.
These were bands who were influenced by the olden days, especially of their native lands or, in certain circumstances, wishful thinking. The hokey terms were battle metal or viking metal. Some act were truly into their nation's folk music heritage and used it into their sound. And of course there were the true pagan folk acts who had more of a black metal heritage. This is where ILDRA comes in. When I saw their name in the promo email I thought I recognized it.
I've said it many times yes I am a fan of the whole pagan folk metal genre. I got hooked on it a decade ago when it was a trend. Of course I was already listening to bands playing that style of music prior to learning wow it's called pagan folk metal. Hell for years I just called it great music. Thank you unknown person who came up with a genre term. But anyways I went into the SFM666 archives to see if I had written about ILDRA before and the answer was no. I've got stacks of CDs on the shelf by pagan, folk, viking, battle metal bands and here's one I missed out on originally.
ILDRA's Eoelland originally came out in the Spring of 2011. It was their only full length release. Prior to it the band/artist (no one really knows other than they're/he's English) had a few demos starting out in 2004. So let's be clear they were not trendy. When I listen to this now my first thought is wow a lot of people followed along this band's pagan folk style. There's a huge amount of acoustic guitar usage. Theirs definitely some viking era Quorthon influence here. Basically post Hammerheart is what I'm referring to as well as the use of sound effects (aka: sounds of clashing battles and crashing waves).
On a whole Eoelland reminds me of GRAVELAND's latter work. I'm talking about when Rob Darken (who by the way was never into the shit he's been accused of by the pc police) went from straight up black metal to more pagan folk style. Musically everything is on the melodic scale with plenty of epicness as well as blackened room to breath. The whole release is slightly less then an hour of tremendous pagan folk music that will capture the true believers.
http://www.heidenshart.nl/
https://heidenshart.bandcamp.com/album/e-elland
