Black Metal History Month - Vanum : "Ageless Fire"

This year the American Black Metal bands I have reviewed have been pretty decent, I was beginning to get sick of American Black Metal and yearn for something with a little more Northern European blood in it's veins until I saw these guys are members of Yellow Eyes, Fell Voices and Ash Borer. So the cream of the American Black Metal crop. The first song has more of a epic almost Summoning like gallop to it that sets it apart from the work of their other projects. Though an instrumental, it's well done , but leaves me waiting for the actual song to kick in. More in your face , foot on the monitors metal when the real song does kick in the vocals are the glaring weak spot in the over all sound as they are a dry mid range rasp that feels like more of an obligatory after thought. So it's a good thing for these guys that everything else is really dialed in to make you almost able to over look this fact. I suppose those of you who only hear guitar guitars and don't care about vocals at all will over look this altogether and not get why I am even making it a deal.

I can almost understand why you would allow the vocal short comings to pass you by as the riffs are big and command head banging. If head banging is all you ask from metal then this album is certainly for you as it is well done. They guitars are well mixed and sound great. I am not sure why people call these guys atmospheric black metal as it's pretty in your face with devil horns held high. Nothing about it comes close to Deafheaven. The blast beats might drive it but the guitar parts can be intricate. When it does come to atmosphere , some surfaces on the otherwise blast heavy " Eternity" it comes by way of odd guitar melodies. Things get a little darker on "Under the Banner of Death" , but for a black metal album there is a bright feeling in what is going on here. The vocal are accented a little different though tonally in the same place. The verses carry more stomp to them. At this point in the album at any time they can break away from the blast beats it's more impressive.

The title track employs more melody to break things up more.This includes a cleaner guitar tone, though only for the first minute, then gallops along. I am waiting to see how long they can last without defaulting to blast beat as I think their most creative writing comes without them. The answer i only two and a half minutes. When they vocals come in things go back to blast. It finds them once again leaning heavily in the more speedy direction. Overall this album is not the most original thing and I prefer the darker Fell Voices , but it sounds good and they are good at what they do. I'll give it an 8, not something I really see my self returning more than I have to review this.

Vanum: "Realm Of Sacrifice"

Members of Ash Borer and Fell Voices have joined forces to form this band. The start of ripping into to is faster than most metal but not the blistering blast beats that are typical of black metal, though the get to those. Then slow into an actual melody that they ride out until the the final few minutes of the ten minute opener. The production is closer to more recent Fell Voices than Ash Borer, with the vocals at a coarse almost barked mid-range. The layering of guitar seems to be their strength. Things get off to a more subtle creeping atmosphere on "In the Immaterial Flame". The vocals get more feral, before they race off into a blinding blur of blast beats and the vocals sound more like an animal screaming out with rabies. At the five minute mark this converges into a reined in tremolo attack with copious amounts of double bass steam rolling the song along.T he song got off to a decent enough start before the momentum sends it rolling down hill faster than their legs can carry it. This is fairly common with black metal so if you just want something to smack you in the face this does much more than that. The formula is reversed here and the more restrained melody prevails in the songs final minutes before bestial howls bring chaos. Of all the songs the twelve minute "Convergence" is the longest. It opens with melancholy guitar that rings out into the re-verb heavy desert sky. Within two and a half minutes the blast beats can not wait though the do so in away that doesn't really crowd the guitar. The vocal come in with a commanding rasp the guitar droning gracefully beneath it. With this style of black metal it would be easier for this to become indistinguishable from their other projects but it has a darker identity of its own. However it is not to say that a song like "Convergence" doesn't find it self at times lost the chaos it creates.


 With "Realm of Sacrifice" if you are not paying attention it seems like a melodic break in the song that goes back into where the previous song left off though there is a little more deliberateness in the double bass to keep things from racing off for a minute. At eight minutes its the albums shortest song , at the five minute mark it allows more melody to be breathed into it. Overall if you are just looking for good blasting atmospheric black metal, these guys do know how not get too atmospheric where the song gets lost, in fact quite the opposite its when thing get going to furiously that the feet of the song comes out from under it, but this can be a problem with black metal in general this comes from those who really adhere hard and fast to the old Darkthrone school of black metal, which is classic, but not the identity for everyone much less the hundreds of black metal bands in my inbox every week. These guys to stand out from the crowd in the thoughtful mood and tones so I'll give them a 7.5.