Draumar - Gebirge [2012]

Believe it or not, my best findings over the last 2-3 years have been in the field of black metal more than anything else: thrash had already lost its revivalist touch after 2009, and few records besides the olden, antique dimensions of death metal interest me, and there were only a handful of stupendous releases on that department, the remainder being a mostly consistent, but unabashedly generic metric chock of bands sprouting out of pretty much anywhere around the globe - thus, some of the most enthralling releases of recent years belong mostly to black metal. Somehow, black metal musicians are able to achieve salvation, or rather, musical incarceration through their own predilections, incorporating an enormously vast choice of sounds into traditional parameters, ranging from folk metal influences to ambient preferences to progressive rock, and while this rule does obviously apply for all black metal bands, it does take into account a considerable number of acts. Of these refreshingly savvy acts I've found Germany's Draumar to be one of the most beautiful and atmospheric, through the usage of orchestral sounds, a superb EP that shines nearly all the way.

This is absolutely soothing music, and certainly not your traditional kind of ambient black metal. There are indeed acts such as the notorious Leviathan or Oranssi Pazuzu that use their aural tendencies to encase the listener in utterly nightmarish profundity, evoking despair and trauma as effortlessly as putting a mentally disfigured person behind bars, but Draumar contrasts entirely from such acts, firmly providing a warm, spectral and haunting layer of pulchritude. You could say that they were influenced by Summoning in many ways, as the atmospheric reflection of many passages seem to be befit for being a soundtrack covering a lost footage of The Shire in the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again, Summoning is something far more glorious and unapologetic in its triumph, a right soundtrack for the defeat of Sauron. The thing about ''Gebirge'' is that it's 85% ambient passages and only 15% guitars/drums/vocals intertwined with the atmospherics above, so it's admittedly a rather stunning, but slow-paced listen, despite its brevity. The opener, ''Auftakt'' is a mellow introduction ceremony for the upcoming wave of musical transcendence, and my favorite track is probably the follow-up, ''Gebirge I'', which initiates with synthesizers redolent of Ihsahn's work on Emperor's debut, and gradually unfurls into a diaphanous spectacle. The vocals are raw, winter-beaten and raspy to the core bu somehow they fit the sound effects perfectly, and the guitars are such crisp expedients that they balance the weigh of the record with heavenly succession.

For those who might scoff at the ''orchestral'' tag: I advise you to listen before you criticize. This is no collection of cheap fillers, and certainly not some cheesy horror flick your local death metal decided to use as an appendix for their disjointed Autopsy duplicate disc - these are real fucking instruments being played with accuracy and technique, implemented brazenly into the music. Pianos. Acoustic guitars. Flutes. Violins. All adhered to different sections of the EP, making it all the better. ''Gebirge II'' is nearly as good as its successor, running for some 7 seven minutes, and in versatility it never seems to lack material. Draumar's fresh take on black metal does not seem to deviate all too greatly from some of its peers, Summoning included, but it's sensational in every way that I can think of with my sole complaint being the lack of engagement, that, despite being launched towards such speed freak as I, did not seem to matter so much; a mere peccadilo of a stain amid a beautiful rainbow. That said, the EP was too short to be fully effective as well, running for about 20 minutes, but still, I can't say there was a moment where the the surreal and dazzling approach of Draumar didn't stun me. This is the kind of music that really needs to be taken to a larger scale; I heartily encourage garden variety Norwegian black metal groups to cut their ragged, uncircumcised music short to give bands like Draumar a little more space. I'm determined to see ''Gebirge's'' follow-up, because despite the soothing attribute of the music, the German can stimulate many a listener with ''Gebirge'', and the prospect of a 60+ minute ''Gebirge'' is highly exciting. Well, at least, if they continue this way.

Highlights:
Gebirge I
Gebirge II

Rating: 86%

Spektr - Cypher [2013]

As much as I love groups like Bastard Sapling, who can instantly rumble into nostalgic, atmospheric haze, groups that seem as if they were bred from acts such as Blut Aus Nord, or Deathspell Omega have a special, assorted appeal to me. France's Spektr is no outsider to the aesthetics of Reverence, CCSABA and the like; in fact, they have over a decade of professionalism behind them along with two more albums at their belts, making them one of the more preferable acts in the recent surge of industrialized ambient black metal manifestations, and certainly one of the more inventive ones too, forming a strident, dissonant balance between your standard drowning black metal tremolo waves and Godflesh, all the while bringing forth a wealth of ambient sound tracks that literally form about half the album. You can already guess what sort of disturbances you're to encounter on your 45 minute journey, a nightmarish apocalypse of discordance pulsing against your ears, lost in a pitch-black gorge.

Alright, I'll admit, despite incorporating such a mass of influences from acknowledged connoisseurs of discordant mourn and turbulence, Spektr are hardly at their tumultuous paramount. The ambient passages and samples that excessively adorn the record are certainly amazing exhibitions of modern macabre, but the riffs themselves are mostly bathed in chock loads of reverb, chorus flange, tape echo and phaser, which lead down to the same dissonant pathway, and they don't particularly feel inaccessible, and actually quite entertaining considering their basis is a simple Norwegian inflection from the mid 90's. The lack of vocals also provide with a mysterious, ominous overtone here, and to be fair all the instruments are an equally important part of the gear-system, and the record itself should be regarded as a gestalt, too, not simultaneous clash of subterranean clangor. While I enjoyed the majority of the ebbing tremolo barrages, the haunting feel of the guitars which sometime took trudging, droning heights in pace and the band's tendency of spontaneity, inserting samples and riffs completely at random and thus creating an aerial complex of capriciousness, I can't deny that the band did an excellent job in building up a dozen of blood-curdling ambient samples.

Only, the number of samples butting into the actual material actually cut off a lot of the real action taking place. Sure, going by their book, moments of such harrowing drudge is only common, but I felt the Frenchman were spending too much time building up for climaxes for the riffs when they should have spent some more time engrossing the substance and not the decoration. The title track, despite being the longest remains my favorite, so filled with captivation that the band at some point gave into straightforward, semi-industrial black/thrash attacks, and there were even  moments when samples and riffs coexisted, leading to the ultimate, obfuscated assembly that I believe that band tried so hard to achieve throughout. I think I might have heard a few gaseous gnarls along the way, though they could have been just pieces of the samples, but still, the band could have accomplished even more if they stuffed in a few dreary growls here and there. ''Cypher'' still remains a prehensile album, a homage to modern Blut Aus Nord, CCSABA and Godflesh, and certainly a very strong album in its own rights. You won't be entirely engrossed, I can assure you that, but more than a couple of spins won't prove to be very healthy for your sanity, either.

Highlights:
Teratology 
Cypher
Antimatter

Rating: 84%