As the title suggests this album is the second part to the French group’s second full length release from 1996 ‘Memoria Vetusta I - Fathers of the Icy Age’, one that unfortunately I have not heard. That aside everything to date that I have encountered from BaN has been different in approach; from the Godfleshian swagger of their seminal ‘The Work That Transforms God’ to the more compact and in my opinion disappointing last release ‘Odinist – The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination’ an album that simply failed to illuminate me. This really feels like the one I have been waiting for by the group. Whilst retaining the strong progressive instrumental lurch which at times had the scope to make you feel giddy and seasick there are moments of beauty and expansive tranquillity here to counterpoise it. Black metal, a genre the band do not particularly see themselves as part of, working outwards from the “pathetic circus,” of “childish satanic clowns” has of late become even more experimental. We have seen defining albums by the likes of Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, Nachtmystium and a host of others all transgressing from any set restrictions and pushing the very limits of acceptability from the scene and its strictures. BaN have always felt of themselves as being apart from it all and with this they have most certainly stepped outside and indeed illuminated and enlightened with a remarkable album.
After a mood setting keyboard intro we get into the swing of things with ‘Disciple’s Libration (Lost in the Nine Worlds)’ and you do get lost as there is plenty going on to explore and fathom out. First it is a coruscating tempest of fury that sweeps you off your feet and then some of those trademark lurching moments beset around Vindsval’s enraged vocal cries. As it slows you are in a slightly disharmonic instrumental realm and one that definitely has a progressive feel about it. This is fleetingly akin to recent Enslaved but I say that only as there is nothing really else that it could be compared to having a real identity of its own. Songs often hit the 8-10 minute mark and at an hour long this is a perfect album to really trip out to. Not overlong and overbearing and not unlike its predecessor frustratingly short. As this first song really forms and the rage disperses you are in a universe that is as much a psychedelic one as anything else and indeed the expansive ambience that it ends on is both barren and a thing of beauty. One that is cosmological and sounds as if it is perhaps trying to converse with sentient alien beings.
As the keyboards waft in on (wait for it) ‘The Cosmic Echoes of Non-Matter (Immaterial Voices of the Fathers)’ I am reminded of Emperor and this is something that I come back to a couple of times on the album. The guitars jangle out an almost post rock refrain as well and the limitations of black metal are thrown right out the window. This could even be stepping into Godspeed You Black Emperor territory as well as the other Emperors clothes here and listening to it you are really taken off into another realm. There are some real hooks melody wise ‘...The Meditant (Dialogue With the Stars)’ is the absolute zenith though and when the guitars literally enrapture you, prepare to be completely bowled over is an unexpected and even joyously uplifting fashion.
If this were a book it would be written by Erich von Däniken, dipping into ancient civilisations on its S.E.T.I. In fact this is the musical equivalent to a close encounter, right down to the stunning album cover which illustrates the scene that is one surely just before an alien space craft touches down. ‘The Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)’ is the beacon it has honed down on, an extraterrestrial sounding keyboard lament weeping in almost sorrow and solitude for an ancient race on the brink of extinction. Finishing with ‘Elevation’ one cannot help but think of Pink Floyd as the album trails off with hope, perhaps of the dawn of a new day or a taste of things to come.
In short ‘Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue with the Stars’ blows each and every entry on my 2008 top albums of the year completely out of the water. It is the best album I have heard since Negura Bunget’s ‘Om’ and as I write this it is a love affair in its very infancy. This is an utterly essential album to own!
http://www.e-c-h-o-e-s.com/ban/index.html
http://www.candlelightrecords.co.uk
