This week sees a Greek onslaught from Yoth Iria and Auriferous Flame, followed by old school death metal from Molder and ambient black metal from Paysage d'Hiver.
Yoth Iria – Blazing Inferno
Genre: Melodic black metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of Origin: Greece
It seems Greece is showing the way for black metal this week. Yoth Iria is a relatively new project in the rough vein of Rotting Christ, in that they play folk- and death-infused melodic black metal with an appetite for dark drama. But while Rotting Christ has traveled far beyond their black metal roots in almost all but lyrical themes, Yoth Iria exists in a sphere that's significantly closer to this source. If I was to put it concisely, they sound like a Hellenic version of Scandinavian bands like Kvaen and Wormwood, whose sound is heavily immersed in frigid, yet expansive folk melody, while retaining a sharp edge of shadowy hostility. Rising tall on a rich production and epic-toned solos, it is far from raw, and not to be taken quite as seriously as satanic banner-bearers like Behemoth, instead poised to deliver a music-oriented, blasphemous experience with a distinct flavor. And to this end they succeed remarkably well, combining infernal riff force with soaring tremolo, majestic rhythms and piercing vocals into a concise and engaging whole.
Highlights: "We Call Upon the Elements" and "In The Tongue of Birds"
Molder – Catastrophic Reconfiguration
Genre: Death metal
Subjective rating: 4/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: USA
Yuck! Slowly immerse yourself in this pit of rotting offal and listen to the surprisingly active pulse of decomposition. If you don't need your death metal to land like an artillery barrage, but care more about sinister grooves and being left with a feeling of needing to disinfect your ears, then you've come to the right place. Molder have fortified themselves on the shelf of mid-tempo, thrash-infused old school death metal. It's like watching a cult splatter film - you never really know when it's gonna completely goof out and when it's gonna serve up the nastiest kill you've ever seen. That being said, this is not a surprising album in any real way - if you liked the band's 2022 release "Engrossed in Decay", you're gonna bang your head to, and involuntarily grin at, the same kind of things on here. It's the kind of album that might fly under the radar among the heavy hitters, but will offer you the same amount of entertainment. On a superficial listen, the rhythms may seem a little repetitive, and the riffs lacking a tad of bite, but these guys get up to so many different antics throughout that you really shouldn't allow yourself to miss.
Highlight: "Masked in Mold"
Auriferous Flame – The Insurrectionists and The Caretakers
Genre: Black metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 4/5
Country of origin: Greece
This 3-track work of Greek epic black metal should, at less than 31 minutes, either be considered a short full-length or a long EP. Not that it feels incomplete, but I could easily see the experience stretching over twice the timeframe. This is the kind of sound that so vividly conjures up mental images that it feels strange not having the visuals of a full-blown theater performance to go with it. Even the production makes it feel like it's coming from a large, elaborate stage, with ghoulish howls and moans resounding through dusty stone corridors, and the performances of the band/actors not really directed specifically at you, but aimed with the purpose of pulling the entire theatre into the same, haunted medieval setting from which they are drawing their inspiration. From a more grounded standpoint, this is crisp, atmosphere-rich black metal with a dark fantasy theme, sounding primitive in the best possible way, with plenty of conviction behind the performances, and being quite straight to the point when setting off into its stripped-down riff sections.
Highlight: "The Caretakers"
Paysage d'Hiver – Die Berge
Genre: Ambient black/doom metal
Subjective rating: 3.5/5
Objective rating: 3.5/5
Country of origin: Switzerland
The kind of black metal that sounds like it's carried to you on the wind in the middle of a blizzard. It brings to mind old, dark fairy tales of malevolent creatures of the night, preying on the lost and weak in a desolate, cold landscape of long nights, and days bringing nothing but distant echoes and whispers of a hostile natural world that's entirely beyond your control. This is a marathon of an album at 1 hr. 42 min. of runtime, with only one track lasting shorter than 10 minutes. It makes you feel extremely isolated and a bit disoriented, swept in who-knows-what direction by the constant surge of the music. It's an experience of few, slow and nuanced changes, with the more direct, harsher black metal elements pushed way back and given the expected low-fi treatment. If you are not completely entranced by the long-form, atmospheric melodies, then large parts of this listen will feel torturously stretched and uneventful, but if you are in the mind to allow yourself to be, then this album will put you thoroughly under the spell.
Highlight: "Urgrund"
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