Blut Aus Nord: "Memoria Vetusta III"

This French black metal project has always been experimental, often digging into a deeper darkness in freeing themselves of the confines of the traditional black metal sound. Yet this album takes a dramatic step backwards into the conventional black metal formula and is being hailed by some as a masterpiece. I'm.fine with them wanting to go back int  a more black metal sound, they had almost become like the Cure a couple of albums ago, but the songs here lack the elements that sets this band apart.

It's not until the woeful final moments of the first song that this resembles the band I love who operates best doing what others don't do.The songs bleed together, but that could be argued about the more classic days of Ulver and Darkthrone, however it's not until "Forhist" that a song really catches my ear as all the sweeping blast beats sweep everything else right past me. Sure it is soothing for the background while I'm working , but is that the role metal should play?

"Henosis" blasts out with a little more bite in it's attack, but does this sound like Blut Aus Nord or a thousand other faceless bands who have adopted this style? I'm far from being at black metal overload, I just want more than defaulting to this type of thing. I find it astounding that these are settling for this kind of middle ground creatively. The clean vocals sound just as incidental as the screamed ones. The formula seems to be each song is comprised of two parts one of those is slightly catchier than the other. So the question is how easily contented are you with the status quo?

"Metaphor of the Moon" is like the moon in the fact it shines from afar, but doesn't always demand my attention.Yet another song that sits in the drone of the back ground with a few punches that might be worth taking note of .The end fades out almost as the album began. I have to give this album a six despite my disappoint meant in the backward step in direction, as it's convincing in the execution, if they felt they had to prove they could do this as well as any one else, then point taken,

3.7