BLUTMOND — Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days (review)

BLUTMOND — Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days album cover Album · 2010 · Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Swiss black metal act Blutmond. The album was released through Code666 in September 2010.

Whenever Code666 releases something you know you´re in for something a bit out of the ordinary and that´s certainly also the case with "Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days". The title of the album should also give you an indication that this is no regular sounding black metal album. I haven´t heard the debut album by the band yet, but as far as I´ve been able to gather of information about it, the music style on that album is more "regular" raw black metal. The music on "Thirteen Urban Ways 4 Groovy Bohemian Days" can be labelled avant garde/progressive black metal and reference points could be acts like Code, Dødheimsgard and even Ulver at times. The occassional use of flugelhorn (it might be a saxophone, I´m not an expert) creates a desolate urban feel I associate with some of Ulver´s work. The music is hard to describe acurately, but experimental black metal with both raspy, aggressive, and clean vocals is a shot at it. The band are very well playing and it´s obvious from listening to the music that they are full of innovative and adventurous ideas. Sometimes the experimentation works and sometimes it doesn´t. The fact that the album is 63:54 minutes long influences my opinion too. It´s simply too long for it´s own good and I´m sure a 40 minutes long album packed with all those great ideas would have worked a lot better. The hour long album unfortunately loses my attention along the way.

So at the end of the day I´m left partially impressed and partially not so entertained. I think the album promises a lot and only partially delivers what it promises. I´ve been giving it some thought, and I think what is lacking here to make this a truly great album is some memorable riffs. I´ve come to the conclusion that it´s the basic riffs that aren´t powerful or distinct enough to really make an impression. The experimental ideas are for the most part successful enough and are a contributing factor to the generally effectful dark/weird atmosphere on the album. The weird song titles like, "You vs. The Modern Lifestyle Obsession", "Working Poor, Yuppie Yeah (A/A 3000)", and "Martini Midnight Madness" are also contributing factors to the alien atmosphere. It´s hard to know who I should recommend the album to, as it is sure to be an aquired taste, but the open minded extreme metal fan could find something of interest here. If you´re able to find enjoyment in the more basic metal elements on the album too and have no problem with the hour long playing time, this album might be worth the investment for you. A 3 to a 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.
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