ARVET — Aijna (review)

Album · 2011 · Black Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-05-08
Vehemency

It’s been four years since Arvet put out its first tape demo Elävän Kuoleman Aamuna, followed by the EP Ihmiskärsimys a year later, both releases prominently dwelling in melancholy, not unlike a plethora of other Finnish black metal acts of late times that lean toward depressive black metal without the pitifulness usually attached to the sub-genre. These bands, instead, shine with occult ideologies and on Aijna, Arvet’s first full-length, the band moves further away from evident depression, introducing a lot of dissonant melody and overall filthiness to the music. The result is something utterly possessed, yet still so beautiful.

Looking at Aijna’s roster, a grand change is visible: Noxifer is no longer the only one responsible for the instruments, as he’s joined by a full line-up of members with strong Saturnian Mist relations. A four headed assembly doesn’t, however, result in precise and professional playing, not at all; Arvet sounds filthier than ever, not only because the instruments are executed with intuitive touch (instead of sitting in the studio recording the fifteenth take of each song), but also production-wise the band still feasts on dusty, low-fidelity soundscapes.

Musically, Aijna took me by surprise right in the beginning when ”Kuoleman Äiti” crawls maliciously with seemingly almost indecipherable dissonance, until a Si Monumentum esque lead melody escorts the track with distant, haunting screams somewhere in the background. Soon after the ’proper’ black metal hits, all the fury reminding me of Verge’s Hatemagic to a great extent - not only this song, but the whole album in general. A clearer example could be ”Rukous Mestarillisen Ajatuksen Oivaltamiseksi” that fluctuates between rapid blasts and slower beats, and closer to the end the melodies rise to heart-rending beauty. In fact, this pattern seems to apply to many of the songs: starting with more rapidity, the tracks progress into quite epic melodies in the end. During first listens, these compositions say little, but after a month of regular listening, I realize they’re all done pretty damn well, including the long outro of ”Liekehtivä Dharana” in which a simple, ritualistic discordance is being repeated for multiple minutes.

If the music alone feels hard to digest, the lyrics are even a level higher. While I was pretty much able to decipher the themes of e.g. mortification on Ihmiskärsimys, Aijna goes wider and deeper into occult subjects in a way that only an advanced explorer of esoteric beliefs can comprehend. The lyrics are spewed out with true feeling by both Zetekh and Noxifer, and the actual content is an important, if not even mandatory, part of Aijna. Personally there’s a lot of unlocked doors in the maze of Aijna for me, and it’ll still take quite a long while to work out everything. But as the thing with comprehensive albums always goes, it isn't required to understand everything and that is what brings a nice charm to a record.

With its intriguing song progressions, authentic and raw sound, intricate occult imagery and symbolic lyrics blazing with ardor, I dare to say that Aijna deserves its place among other modern Finnish classics-to-come, or cult legends, such as IC Rex’s Valonkantajan Alkemia even if I’m already quite certain that - all unnecessary elitism aside - only few can see Aijna’s appeal due to its ultimately challenging nature both musically and thematically.