Vehemency Anu’s long-awaited debut, Opus Funaerum, is a really welcome album in times when so many black metal records sound like impatient children spewing out as many riffs in a minute as possible, with bad results. Anu takes totally different approach: on this 30-minute album, half of the songs are ambient(ish) tracks incorporating usually just a synth and a female voice, most perfectly executed in the haunting pieces ”Epicus in Obscurum” and ”Thy Winternight”.

These ambient songs are not just cheap interludes; I find them to be a very important part of Anu’s music, due to the fact that the black metal tracks are rather simple too, not leaning on too many and diverse riffs. The drums consist of steady mid-paced blast beats mostly, the singer is somewhat reminiscent of Wintherr from Paysage d’Hiver with all the shrieks from afar, and there is some magical touch in the guitar riffs, delivering both sinister and melancholic tunes with its stable and soothing tremolo fire.

For once I’ve come across a brand new black metal album that I would love to listen to in the midst of nocturnal nature: it’s something that is a pleasure to focus on, let its darkness flow and do its purifying job as a good musical (and, for some, why not spiritual) experience. Sounds poetic? Perhaps, but that’s just a good sign, it means that the album in question is really good.