Receiving the Evcharist is our weekly feature where we pair choice albums with our favorite libations. Drink from the cup of heresy. This week’s offering: Fluisteraars’ Gegrepen Door de Geest der Zielsontluiking and Guthrie Cider Works’ Brut with Blackberry Currant.
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The Tunes: Fluisteraars’ Gegrepen Door de Geest der Zielsontluiking
I make it a pretty obvious point to remind readers of my various columns about my love of Dutch black metal any chance I get, and particularly so whenever there is a new Fluisteraars album to heap praise upon. In a scene that is meteorically rising to bring some of the most interesting innovation to the black metal formula, none manage to capture my heart the way Fluisteraars have. Bloem was easily some of the best and most inventive black metal released last year, and now Gegrepen Door de Geest der Zielsontluiking follows closely on its heels, taking the listener further down into a world of ecstatic madness. Cutting traditional black metal with wild psychedelia, Gegrepen Door… takes the formula laid out on Bloem to its next logical step, keeping the same experimentation and liberating it with a wild, feral energy. Nowhere is this more fully realized than “Verscheuring in de schemering,” the album’s twenty-minute closing track, which goes from furious black metal to freeform improvisation with screeching instrumentation and spastic percussion and back again, until the frenzy the band has whipped themselves into burns out in a blaze of glory. Whenever I feel like I’m beginning to get bored of black metal, it always does me good to remember there are bands like Fluisteraars out here genuinely still pushing the boundaries of what this music is capable of.
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The Booze: Guthrie Cider Works’ Brut with Blackberry Currant
We’re moving out of the world of beer once again this week to remind you that I also have a love for a good, tart, dry cider, and San Diego’s Guthrie Cider Works delivers on all those fronts. The blackberry and currant play up the tartness of the apple very nicely, the whole thing is dry as a bone (no sweet ciders, not ever), and at 8% ABV you get a really nice bang for your buck on this one. Currants can have a slightly odd aftertaste, but if you’re someone that likes that, I’d recommend this highly.
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Cheers, and be good to each other,
– Vincent
Nine Circles 