onsdag 8 Aug 2012, 10:01

What once was indeed…

First album I experienced from Blut Aus Nord was Odinist: The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination. What a weird and pleasurable ride it was! Captured in a synth based openers and closers was the gem of mid-paced Black Metal aesthetics, presented in a very distinct manner. That was a great release to throw in a CD player at night.

I remember one of the finest exposures to BAN – I played some Horror games on PS2 and then got bored. It was my vacation and I decided to jump on my MTB and ride to Sigulda – a small town about 50km NE from Riga. So I did. Put some IEMs in my ears, pumped up Ultima Thulée and was blown away by the abstraction and variety of things going on the soundstage. Everything was moving, altering and enveloped in a fucking brilliant Black Metal formula, accompanied by great synthwork! I loved it especially while enjoying the album upon my return from the pitch-black roadside to the lights of the Riga, which zoomed in from the distance as I advanced. I remember that The Plain of Ida was playing and yup, this gem sold my soul entirely to BAN.

Now what we have is What Once Was… Liber II. And I can’t say that I really like it. I would love to fully enjoy it but I don’t. Everything is just too monotonous for my taste. In fact it reminds me of The Work Which Transforms God – an album that I didn't really enjoy either – as I remember, focus was put on monotonous blasting and missing of some unmixable stuff and I grew tired of that rather quickly. I just didn’t find any appeal in that release. And here is something similar – a blasting and riffing in a monstrous train that has no distinct direction set. It rattles away to some dark alleys, slows down in some underground stations but never really delivers you to some fine, awe inspiring part of the abstract universe. I miss that, since the first three releases and Odinist did exactly that and I highly value this ability of BAN. Of course, there are some interesting things too going on in Liber II, but the only stuff that merges them together is that slow tempo, altering with a fast blastbeating – a BAN signature that I really enjoy when Vindsval arranges it properly.
If I had to choose – I’d choose the second song II for it has some interesting stuff going on in the background and that’s about the only thing I really enjoy in this release. What Once Was… Liber II is quite a OK release and I truly hope that the content of the upcoming full length 777 – Cosmosophy will be more sophisticated, enjoyable and diverse.

70/100