Yog Sothoth With song titles like "The Choir of the Dead" and "Procession of the Dead Clowns", this is not an album to play as background music for bingo events or Sunday brunches. It's bleak, cold, unforgivable and downright mean sounding. The music is almost a miasma of buzzy guitars playing dissonant melodies propulsed by somewhat industrial sounding drum tracks that pinball between slow grooves and ripping blasts. Vocals are basically growls and screams that are completely indecipherable, along with some distant additional vocal tracks that sort of meander and weave in and out of the music along with some keyboards to add to the creepy aura. There are a few tracks that are essentially eerie interludes to keep the haunting vibe afloat before the next onslaught of hair- raising chord progressions kicks in.

The French black metal scene had some unique ideas and style going on the first decade of this century judging by this effort. The guitar playing in particular is played in an interesting fashion...such as two guitars deliberately tuned to be a bit 'off' from each other to create this sick sounding swarming insect sound...which reminds me of Deathspell Omega to some extent, although this Blut Aus Nord album just about predates DsO's incorporation of that dissonant aggression into their work. Normally the idea of programmed drums is a big turn off for me, but in this case they work. There's a surprising amount of creativity going on in the programming, as if the tracks were performed by some progbot software.

There are a few tracks that don't quite measure up to others here, but songs like "The Choir of the Damned" with its angry bizarre riffs and the impressive variations on display in "Our Blessed Frozen Cells" are just too damn good to deny. The last track ends things on an impressive note as well, sounding almost gorgeous in a weirdly majestic fashion. I'm no fan of stagnant by-the-numbers black metal, thus I found this to be a bit of a treat and it had a sound of its own when it was released. .

Wilytank If I ever wanted to listen to dissonant, nightmarish black metal, I'd turn to Blut aus Nord first. From 'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion' onward, it's what they've been pretty much known for. However, among all those albums, 'MoRT' has stood out as the most dark and disturbing to listen to. That hasn't made it actually better than the others though.

The first noticeable uniqueness in this album is how much slower it is compared to Blut aus Nord's previous material. Even 'The Work Which Transforms God' whose most well known pieces are the slower ones (particularly "Procession of Dead Clowns") doesn't match up with 'MoRT'. I suppose a good amount of that has to do with 'MoRT''s darker atmosphere. While 'The Work...' had faster songs that were really dissonant sounding, the slower ones had a more melancholic tinge. Every track on 'MoRT' is basically one bad trip or mental rape after another. This is music you listen to when your soul gets abducted and gets transported across some dark, ethereal void. The dissonant guitar work helps bring this about, but surprisingly so do the vocals. Vindisval uses a mixture of unintelligible screeches, growls, whispers, chants, and more to further conjure this frightening experience. The production is noticeably dryer as well, so the foggier sound will make you get even more lost in this black haze.

'MoRT' does have problems though, and the most notable problems were also present on 'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion'; but at the same time, these flaws were worked on to make them a little more bearable. The first problem is having the approximately 30 seconds of non-music between the songs. The good news though is that Blut aus Nord made these sections a lot more interesting. While all the sections between the songs on '...Mystical Beast...' were all quiet wind sounds, 'MoRT' instead uses creepy dissonant sounds that go right along with the music. My favorite of these is the transition between "Chapter VII" and "Chapter VIII", which has some really low and distorted growls as if Lucifer is speaking to the listener; quite fitting considering it's going into the final track of the album and the listener meets the master of this dark void. The other notable problem is the naming of the songs simply as "Chapter I", "Chapter II", etc.; and like '...Mystical Beast...', 'MoRT' isn't Blut aus Nord's most memorable output, but it's still very intriguing to listen to from beginning to end and there's more individual songs that I find myself going back to.

Though it falls on the weaker side of Blut aus Nord's spectrum of albums, 'MoRT' isn't bad in any sense. If you're looking for something really dark and disturbing to listen to, then this is a great album to check out, because if there's one thing this album does better than Blut aus Nord's other works, it's that it creates a darker atmosphere than any of the others and it works out pretty well.

Wilytank Getting a CD to me means, among other things, that if I want to write a review for that album, I no longer have to be glued to a computer if I want to use the music as a reference (which I always do). I've also developed a craving to collect certain bands' discographies, one of them being Blut aus Nord's. One thing that's unfortunate though is that the three Blut aus Nord CDs I own at the time of writing this review are, in my opinion, their three weakest: 'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion', 'MoRT', and '777-The Desanctification'. None of these albums are inherently bad, but the good news is that any other album by them I buy is going to be better than what I have. For now though, let's get a review out for 'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion', the first Blut aus Nord album to be introduced to my collection.

Pressing the play button greets me with a fast paced assault of melodic tremolo guitar play and blast beating drums. This first piece, "Chapter I", maintains the drum pattern until a little after the four minute mark. But before that, the riffs do vary to prevent the song from becoming stagnant. Once the music ends, there's a minute of quiet sounding howling of wind that continues on into the first thirty seconds of the second song. Here lies the first problem this album has, and every song after the first one has that moment of quietness before and after the actual music. I call that time waste. I could handle it if it was just at the end of a song so I could just hit the skip button, but the fact that I must waste my precious finger energy holding the fast forward or otherwise sit waiting for the music to start again in the thirty or so second mark of the following song really grinds my gears.

Turning my attention to the actual music though, 'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion' isn't very bad at all. Blut aus Nord have all but dropped the pagan act here and have begun playing their nightmarish style that they would be known for in their following albums. Vindisval's guitar work is well played and well written; and the dark, nightmarish atmosphere is definitely present here; but these attributes are stronger in some places on this album than other parts of the album. However, as the songs go on, this album's second problem becomes apparent. The fast paced blast beating that was used in the beginning of "Chapter I" is reused as the standard drum pattern through the rest of the songs, which makes the album a little monotonous. The guitar work is well varied though, and the drum pace does try to switch itself up at sections such as the final minutes of "Chapter I" and the entirety of "Chapter V" where things slow up a good bit.

'The Mystical Beast of Rebellion' as a whole isn't Blut aus Nord's most memorable piece of music, and having all the songs named "The Fall, Chapter (roman numeral)" doesn't help. But although I usually only go back to "Chapter I" because there's no silence at the beginning and it eventually does slow its pace down, giving the whole album a full listen still offers a pretty solid experience despite its flaws. The good news for those who want this album for themselves is that the most readily available version of this album is the 2011 version with a bonus disc with three more songs that are all slower than disc one's and may be thicker in the nightmare atmosphere. It's a pretty win/win situation in my book.

UMUR "777 - The Desanctification" is the 10th full-length studio album by French black metal act Blut aus Nord. The album was released through Debemur Morti Productions in November 2011. The band have been quite busy lately as they also released "777 - Sect(s)" in April 2011. "777 - The Desanctification" is the second album in a triology of albums that started with "777 - Sect(s)".

The music on the album is atmospheric and in some cases industrial tinged extreme metal with more than a nod towards post metal. The tracks are repetitive and atmosperic, slow- to mid paced and for the most part dark and ominous. The black metal tag that is usually applied to the band´s music actually isn´t that useful when describing this album. It´s mostly the sparse unintelligible raspy vocals that point in that direction and even those are of a more death metal tinged juicy quality. Usual black metal traits like blast beats and fierce tremolo picking are not a part of the sound on "777 - The Desanctification".

The sound production is professional and suits the music really well.

"777 - The Desanctification" is not an album with jaw dropping virtuosic moments or hookladen guitar riffs. It´s all about dark ambient atmosphere and the band are very good at creating an interesting listening experience. a 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

Wilytank Look at either versions of this album's artwork. The original, a pencil drawing of a grim, wintery landscape. The re-release, a surrealistic, colored portrait of a grim, wintery landscape. That is what Blut aus Nord is trying to convey with their debut album, 'Ultima Thulee', and they do it much better than many of their contemporaries. 'Ultima Thulee' was actually my first exposure to Blut aus Nord and remains my favorite of the whole legacy.

If you've read my review of Paysage d'Hiver's 'Steineiche', you'll recall me stating that that particular album/demo's take on the winter theme will never find an equal. I guess I kinda have to eat those words as this album will get a slightly higher score than 'Steineiche', but in my defense it's worth noting that this album has more of a heathen flavor to its approach with titles including Hlidskjalf, Ginnungagap, and Bifrost. Therefore, it would be fair to say that Vindsval intended the theme here to be more about heathenism and such (which he would continue with on Blut aus Nord's sophomore album) than just winter in general.

Songs like "The Son of Hoarfrost" and "From Hlidskjalf" are the best examples of the typical tones set forth on this album: rawer sounding black metal with keyboards to generate the cold feeling and plenty of variation to keep the listener hooked. Variations come in the forms of both music played, which Vindsval has written exceptionally well; and tempo, an early example being the faster sections of "The Son of Hoarfrost", an otherwise slow to mid-paced song.

Another nice treat for many of the songs here is the period of quieter ambiance featuring keyboards and/or cleaner sounding guitar in the middle of the song. These sections provide excellent amounts of beauty to this wintry soundscape. On some songs, however, Vindsval made some welcome variation on this. "Till I Perceive Bifrost" doesn't feature one of those breaks at all (unless you count the intro), "On the Way to Vigrid" features clean guitar played alongside the rawer sounding guitar, and "The Plain of Ida" is centered around being more atmospheric with the keyboards in the simple but bleak and beautiful sounding intro and later the series of dark sounding pulses that lead to the eerie sound of the guitar fading back in.

Vindsval does the vocals well here too. The main style he uses is a sort of black metal screech; but amid the black metal blizzard here, it reminds me of howling wind. He does use some cleaner sounding vocals on "The Son of Hoarfrost" during the ambient break as well. I'd love to see some lyrics to go along this; but as most of you know, Blut aus Nord just don't do that.

The flow of the songs on 'Ultima Thulee' is arranged with such skill that it feels like some epic wintry journey. "The Son of Hoarfrost" feels like a journey across the rocky mountainside during a blizzard. Then across the calmer, snow covered "Plain of Ida" to ascend a great mountain at "From Hlidskjalf". A pause at the top of the mountain while the choral howling of "My Prayer Beyond Ginnungagap" plays through is followed by a descent to the beat of "Till I Perceive Bifrost" and it's strangely distinct sound of whale calls (wtf?). Then, we go "On the Way to Vigrid", stop for a pretty ambient break with "Rigsthula", and make our final approach to our wintry grave in "The Last Journey of Ringhorn"'s beautiful sounding finish.

The scenic bleakness and majesty of 'Ultima Thulee' is what makes listening to winter themed atmospheric black metal so enthralling. Now that I'm in this icy prison, I don't think I want to find a way out.