Review: Blut Aus Nord - 777 Sect(s)

Artist: Blut Aus Nord
Title: 777 Sect(s)
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Debemur Morti
Genre: Black Metal
Rating: 78 / 100

It's spring, the sun has been shining non-stop for almost a week now and a great amount of sunny pop and rock albums have been released the past couple of weeks. Almost about to review the new Alessi's Ark album (postponed to tomorrow), I discovered French Black Metal band Blut Aus Nord had just released a sequel to their 2010 EP What Once Was... Liber I, It's called 777 Sect(s), and has been announced as being the first part of an album trilogy. Those who are familiar with Blut Aus Nord will know what to expect, even 'though their sound changes from album to album, ranging from a somewhat traditional, Scandinavian sounding first album to the more industrial, complex and dissonant recent recordings, they have always kept this, even for Black Metal standards, very dark and haunting atmosphere, which increased every album and reaches its preliminary climax at this 777 Sect(s). 

Blut Aus Nord has always been known as a band that constantly keeps renewing themselves, their history is one full of very distinct albums, each (in my humble opinion) great in its own way, just one exception was made in their carreer, but you probably know which album I'm talking about, 777 Sect(s) is at least no deviation from this pattern. Blut Aus Nord is familiar with the creation of this onerous, burdensome sound, here they again reinvent this sickening kind of music, this time by the use of stomach wrecking lows and brain destroying mids, topped by synth based, droning highs. Overall one could compare the atmosphere on this album to what was to be heard on MoRT (ok, here it is, I said it), the difference being that MoRT had a somewhat empty, hollow sound, 777 Sect(s) on the other hand has a much fuller, and at the same time more suffocating sound, capturing what they were probably trying to achieve on MoRT, but in a much better way.

The thing that makes the sound of Blut Aus Nord so remarkable for me has always been the kind of inimitable songwriting, the complex, yet seizing compositions. On here this expresses itself in a dissonant, anfractuous kind of Black Metal, which is, for me at least, fairly hard to listen to; it's definitely not something one would like to put on while enjoying spring's sunlight or having one's morning cup of tea. The aforementioned compositions consist of a mixture of a slightly industrial type of programmed drums (in the same fashion as MoRT), distorted, guitar like bass, heavily distorted dissonant guitar melodies and, surprisingly, a very small role for the vocal parts. 777 Sect(s) heavily focusses on the instrumental part of the musis, which is something I really do not mind, their occasional appearance add to the album's overall atmosphere, but they are low in the mix and are never overdone.

Objectively speaking Blut Aus Nord have created a very fine addition to their very extensive, alternating discography. Subjectively I must say the album's heavily opressive, anfracturous sound is something which makes me think of albums like Memoria Vetusta II Dialogue With The Stars or Odinist - The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination as being more enjoyable albums. Yet, this last statement is highly personal, and doesn't derogate from the quality of this album at all.

Spread the love,

Selwin.