Vimur : " Traversing the Ethereal Current"

This band is a bit of an anomaly as Atlanta is not known for it's black metal. So it stands to reason that black metal is not the only element that makes up this band's dna. Sure they have plenty of blasting and it lashes into it right from the first song, which also finds a very thrashy riff cropping up amid the blast beats. The vocals are pretty buried into the guitars , they tend to lean towards a more typical rasp with lower death metal roars chiming in. "Leech of Humanity" is the first song taht really takes a dynamic shift as it slows into a more Agalloch paced riff. The majority of the time song races along , though one of the band's strengths is compositionally they can shift easily from riff to riff and do not rely adhering to a verse chorus format.


There is one cool riff in "the Pernicious Doctrine" , but the song is a little too thrashy and doesn't engage me a much as the previous one.Next up in this blastothon is "Ephemeral Sentience" which has a brief breakdown toward the intro then goes of into blasting. There is an "Angel of Death" like scream randomly tossed in way in the background. "By Black Winds Oppressed" finds more melody even with the lower growls booming in. The guitars also become more adventurous dipping into a more progressive sensibility somewhere between Agalloch and Krallice.<"Professions of the Heresiarch" thankfully gallops more than it blasts. Even if this is doing in more of a thrash manner. The title track eventual converges into a more compelling gallop, but the song numbs me out as the songs begin to become a blur losing my attention.

They start off more melodically with "To Abide In Eternal Grief" which has a darker almost doom like throb. This change of pace was what the album needed as I was starting to lose interest.They speed things back up for "Memory of Heathen Reign" and the blasting commences . There is a gallop that rides in to save the song from being a blur of snare. Things don't really switch up until about the five minute mark. Then they speed back up again.his album came out back in 2014, but just now hunted it down after attempting to contact the band, gods forbid I would be forced to leave the computer and venture out to one of their shows which every time I have planned on seeing them gets cancelled , hoping to catch them with Negura Bunget soon.If you would like Krallice to make more sense and approach more basic metal sensibilities then these guys are for you. I'll give this album a 7, give it another listen and see if it grows on me at all.

6.3