‘Hellfire’ was a fantastic album, brimming with well-crafted songs and for the most part, bloody relentless savagery. It was akin to a Death Metal band playing Black Metal in many respects, with drummer Frost laying a very substantial backbone for the blackend barbarity to thrive upon. Now, four years later, they’ve returned with ‘Revelations of the Black Flame’, and those of you who haven’t read the press release and think this is just a continuation of their previous three albums are going to get a considerable shock.
This isn’t so much a collection of songs, but a 45 minute soundtrack. Songs have been stripped and slowed down, and some atmospheric instrumentals have sprung up in places, adding another dimension of darkness to their sound.
The composition of this record is inherently different and far removed from any of their three previous releases, but it does undeniably still retain a considerable grasp upon Black Metal. Essentially 1349 haven’t left the genre, they’re just expanding and experimenting with it, and it definitely works!
As ‘Invocation’ begins, you could be forgiven for thinking the band are going to go off blasting for Satan once again, as a wall of wailing erupts...but no. This is a much more subtle start to an album and the tortured cries slowly fade into ambient noise. The splash of a cymbal slowly creeps up from the mire to join a bizarre riff, which in some respects, brings the mechanical nature of Fear Factory to mind – in a 1349 kind of way. Yes I know, strange.
The track continues for the remaining couple of minutes with a very sluggish black riff and beat, and marks vocalist Ravn’s rasping entrance to the album.
‘Serpentine Sibilance’ is somewhat more Metal in nature, but still trundles along, this time with a more menacing stomp, as if warning you that its chain could come loose at any moment. A melancholic but tuneful riff makes the transition and suddenly Frost is all bass drums and thrash-beats; finally, a brief blast has the first instrumental, ‘Horns’ in sight.
Those who appreciate the very ambient, unsettling moments the Danish one-man-band Nortt composes, will no doubt find that ‘Horns’ very successfully bridges the gap to ‘Maggot Fetus – Teeth like Thorns’; undoubtedly the most brutal composition on ‘Revelations...’.
It really is Metal all the way for three and a half minutes; as if they’ve just flown a flag with the words ‘Bang your heads now!!’ for all to see. Frost and lone guitarist Archaon are let off their leashes and the shredding and blasting reigns down in that typically Deathy Black manner we’re accustomed to.
The clicking during ‘Misanthropy’ suggests a film is being shown on an old, dusty projector whilst the pianist is playing his (or her) sinister tune. It’s a clever move and really emphasises the mood well, making you feel quite alone and even vulnerable.
Separating the two heaviest tracks with such an instrumental was no doubt a good move, meaning the album has no way of drifting off the soundtrack’s journey and into regular album territory. ‘Uncreation’ opens with high, morose chords, drifting into chugs powered by Frost’s double bass battery, and thundering away with blackened guitar shrieks along the way. It stops and a much slower, steadier riff, a lot less dark in shade beckons the band along; at times with piano, and sounding incredibly like something you’d hear on Opeth’s ‘Damnation’ – yet obviously heavier. The piercing black riffs will their way back into the sound effectively as the snare feels its life under threat once again, a solo breaking out to end it all.
‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’, originally by Pink Floyd, will probably be the strangest choice of cover these Norwegians ever record; though considering how utterly unconventional this album is anyway, it works rather well. Relying mainly on a Seidemann bass line, layered whispering from Ravn, and double bass flicks here and there, it’s a pretty interesting and successful version.
Nortt-like eeriness descends one final time in the form of ‘Solitude’, the concluding instrumental, which is full to the brim of synthesised, creepy ambience, during which another couple of chords surface, reminding once again of Opeth (what’s going on here?!). As it comes to an end, we find ourselves ‘At the Gate’, where we’re faced with a slow, almost doomy build-up of gloomy notes, tom thumps and cymbal splashes. Ravn spits venom amidst reverberating metal and gradually it quietens down, leaving only those strange unsettling background sounds and the thump of a tom for company.
http://www.legion1349.com
http://www.myspace.com/1349official
http://www.candlelightrecords.co.uk
