BLUT AUS NORD — MoRT (review)

Album · 2006 · Atmospheric Black Metal

5/5 · 2021-01-12
siLLy puPPy

While second wave of black metal was without a doubt the product of Norwegian wrath against humankind and religious practices with plenty of church burnings to add some visuals, the relative adaptive nature of the buzzsaw guitar led bombast and simple song structures allowed various elements to hybridize quite quickly making black metal one of the most versatile subgenera in the entire metal universe. While Darkthrone, Emperor, Immortal and Mayhem may have led Norway’s darkened dramatic take on the 80s metal that evolved into the 90s, it became clear in the 2000s that France was taking the lead having created some of the most unique experimental examples of taking black metal into surreal new realities.

The one man band BLUT AUS NORD also known as Vindsval took the atmospheric black metal approach of Burzum and Naglfar and adopted some of the first traces of psychedelic rock as far back as “Ultime Thulée” in 1995 but once the BLUT AUS NORD project became a fully fueled band beginning with 2003’s “The Work Which Transforms God,” Vindsval and friends took the black metal world by storm by crafting a new level of sophistication that had never been achieved with depressive chugging atonal guitar riffs enshrouded by suffocating atmospheres and crafting a sonicscape that reflected the frequencies of true hellish underworlds.

Three years later this Mondeville outfit took the stylistic approach on the breakthrough album to its logical conclusion with the fifth full-album MoRT which featured Vindsval on guitar and vocals along with bandmates W.D. Feld on drums and keyboards and GhÖst on bass. The album which pretty much was a continuous flow of bleak mind-numbing surreality which featured eight tracks symbolizing a “Chapter” of a greater nebulous concept never quite defined. The overall mood of the album is terrorizing as MoRT allows you to enter a strange new world where nothing is familiar and excels in atonal deformity unlike anything else that has been experienced before or after.

Beginning with terrifying processed vocals and dark ambient swirls, the atonal amorphous guitar riffs swim in a gelatinous vacuum with abstract drum beats, dissonant swells of distortion and thick depressive atmospheres that sound like single musical notes are tortured until they cease to exude a life force. In many ways MoRT exudes the absolute perfect fusion of black metal textural sensibilities with icy dark ambient atmospherics crafting a perfect balance of calculated metrics. Twisted progressive time signatures slink and slither like magically enhanced serpents writhing out of cold fiery pits in the bowels of the deepest recesses of the underworld, a place so devoid of light and human tangibility that one is reduced to a spiritual cryogenic state of the soul.

Perhaps one of the most adventurous black metal experiences one could possibly encounter, it’s fair to say that BLUT AUS NORD changed the black metal world exponentially with “The Work Which Transforms God” and this even more bizarre example of MoRT which would apparently shift the tectonic plates leading many other French black metal bands like Deathspell Omega and S.V.E.S.T. to adopt some of the deranged harsh tactics employed on this sonic display of freakery. Perhaps the least metal of BLUT AUS NORD’s canon, MoRT excels at being utterly outside the boundaries of virtually anything orthodox in any musical genre. The processed unintelligible vocals that erupt occasionally only add an emphatic sense of horror to the incessant parade of soul splitting awe that lasts for 47 minutes of sonic terror.

Needless to say, MoRT is unlike any other musical experience you could imagine existed and is perhaps one of the most terrifying albums that has ever been produced. Taking on aspects of black metal, dark ambient, progressive rock and even freeform no wave accompanied by a series of deep processed otherworldly growls and the occasional liturgical choirs peaking out of the din, MoRT is without a doubt one that will disturb even the most hardened music lover upon first listen and will send any uninitiated passerby to the insane asylum. This music requires learning an entirely new language in many ways to comprehend as it craftily displays some of the most extreme possibilities of a black-metal-in-opposition approach. While BLUT AUS NORD has crafted some excellent albums in its multi-decade career, it’s this one MoRT that i find the most original and utterly fascinating in its unapologetic experimental rampage.