Candlelight Records

Having come a long way from their powerful beginnings, Blut Aus Nord are no less powerful and ambitious today than they were in 1993. Though, referring to Blut Aus Nord as "they" or "them" may be technically incorrect even if there are multiple members of the band. To my knowledge, Vindsval is still the sole creative force behind what started as a one man band known as Vlad to later be renamed to Blut Aus Nord. Since there is now a full band, I will continue to treat it as a band rather than a singular artist. If their current sound is any reflection, they've grown from purveyors of raw, epic, hauntingly evocative black metal to purveyors of less raw, equally epic, and perhaps even more hauntingly evocative black metal with albums such as The Work Which Transforms God and now their seventh full length, Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars, which show a stunning command of the advanced ideas hinted at in earlier works.

It's a complex spiral of darkness and mind-altering layers of ethereal, cascading webs of trance-inducing melodic movements and soundscapes that makes this album what it is. Drums that, though they are reported to be performed by a human, sound a little too mechanical to my ears to beleive in any human intervention aside from programming, are similar to what we heard in The Work Which Transforms God. They provide a strong rhythmic base, but offer no flare or attention-grabbing moments, allowing the listener's attention to be fully given to the beautiful and ominous opus of constantly changing progressions of dark melodic themes explored in great depth by Vindsval and company. 

Though I've never been opposed to drum machines, and have used them myself when the contributions of a real drummer are impractical or impossible, I've always thought Blut Aus Nord's sound could benefit from more authentic sounding drums. This is a minor quibble, however. As I mentioned, the drums are intelligently left as an afterthought, the last aspect of the music one will worry about after the rest of the monumental sound is digested.

The songwriting on this album suggests a bit of influence from progressive rock, though with an entirely different execution than what was going on in the 70's. I always hesitate to say that any metal is progressive, because this is usually misleading. There's an absolutely progressive aspect here, but its realization is in no way detrimental to the black metal aesthetic. But that brings me to another point - this is beyond black metal in any sense. The expected characteristics of standard black metal are no where to be found on this album, aside from the vocals. But the result of the music is an achievement that is the end goal for much black metal through an admittedly more primitive and raw medium, while with Dialoge..., Blut Aus Nord raise the bar in terms of artistic proficiency. Dialogue with the Stars isn't an album of ignorant conversations with celebrities as you may have initially assumed. Instead, the title accurately describes the essence of what this music conveys, and that is an enigmatic form of cosmic communication and enlightenment.

At times the structure of songs, though filled with turbulence and brilliance, may become a bit formulaic with token moments of clean passages giving contrast to the sensations of heavy cosmic madness, but I don't find this very distracting. It doesn't feel predictable; it feels almost necessary. It lends further credence to the relationship with progressive music.

1. Acceptance (Aske)
2. Disciple's Libration (Lost in the Nine Worlds)
3. The Cosmic Echoes of Non-Matter (Immaterial Voices of the Fathers)
4. Translucent Body of Air (Sutta Anapanasati)
5. The Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)
6. ...the Meditant (Dialogue With the Stars)
7. The Alcove of Angels (Vipassana)
8. Antithesis of the Flesh (...and Then Arises a New Essence)
9. Elevation

8.6/10