Cold icewinds sweep my weightless body over the bridge to unknown lands. The fog was thick before me as I fell into the unknown realms. The darkness had fallen before me, as I saw my body fall into the ground. I am far away, I am far away from the sun… Beyond All Horizons features shorter reviews dedicated solely to black metal: a new release, an older album (a month, a year, a decade, or perhaps even longer), concluded with a hand-picked track of the week.
No connecting threads on this edition, but three different flavors of black metal new and old. First up is the debut from melodic black act Apolaustic, followed up with a post-Hell’s Heroes look at speedster standouts Bütcher, and finally my thoughts on the new single from Panopticon.
New & Trve: Apolaustic – No Plenitude Without Suffering
Switzerland’s Apolaustic is the new musical vehicle for Romain Negro, the former frontman of Stortregn. I’d come across that band in my ceaseless search for great melodic black metal, but they were far too weedily in their technicality and too “modern”-sounding for these ears that crave some degree of musical thread to the sounds of the ’90s. No Plenitude Without Suffering thankfully provides a solid link to that foundation, as harmonized tremolo picking is unleashed in a manner very befitting the riffage that came out of Sweden in that bygone era. The production serves as a modern contrast to these riffs with guitars bright and crisp, lacking the cold nocturnality of acts like Sacramentum or Vinterland. It’s not all trem-picking though, as Apolaustic’s strongest suit is the manner in which Negro holds single notes as he crafts grand leads in the intro of “Testimony of an Obsolescent World” or throughout “Shining Amidst the Lights.” I’m reminded of Dödsrit’s Nocturnal Will, and the similar manner in which held notes soaring above the rest of the sonic landscape are able to hold even more weight than the most heavily-layered chords.
No Plenitude Without Suffering isn’t a full-fledged prog metal album, but it leans a bit towards that direction. In between the blackened fury are moments of pensive meditation through clean guitar sections, syncopated 3/4 grooves, and infrequent Gojira-style tapping; “Black Flame Reviver” even features a couple saxophone solos. There’s a definitive prog/post-metal undercurrent at the foundations of Apolaustic, but it’s not enough to turn me off as someone who finds a lot of that sound (especially in the current day) to be pretty uninteresting. It’s not the best release I’ve heard so far this year, but No Plenitude Without Suffering is a rock solid debut that points towards a promising horizon for this singular vision. Worth a listen for all fans of the melodic side of black metal.
No Plenitude Without Suffering will be available April 3 through Transcending Obscurity Records. For more information on Apolaustic, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Old & Cold: Bütcher – 666 Goats Carry My Chariot
A couple weeks ago I went to Hell’s Heroes in Houston, Texas for the very first time; a fest that focuses not on black metal but rather thrash, speed, and classic trad metal mania. Enslaved playing the entirety of Vikingligr veldi along with the North American debut of Bathory tribute Blood Fire Death were the reasons I went in the first place (and they absolutely killed it), but the fest also provided an opportunity to check out some up-and-coming acts in the ripped jeans, permed-hair world of retro metal. One of the biggest surprises came from Belgium’s Bütcher, who both put on a hell of a show and have had me keeping sophomore full-length 666 Goats Carry My Chariot in frequent rotation. Primarily a blackened speed metal affair, the 2020 album burns with the rekindled fire of the fastest and most blistering ’80s acts on appropriately named tracks like “45 RPM Metal” and “Metallström / Face the Bütcher” in a manner perhaps only surpassed by Hellripper and Hexecutor (these may or may not be the only modern speed metal-adjacent acts I know).
Frontman R Hellshrieker’s pseudonym is more than appropriate, his infernal banshee wails adding a tremendous amount of character to the face-melting riffs and solos. As solid as the fast tracks are, the supreme highlight of the album comes from its nine-minute title track. Channeling the epic sound and scale of viking-era Bathory (i.e. the best era) or Mercyful Fate, this track starts off slow with soft clean guitars before becoming an extended trek through speedy trem-picked black metal, trad metal solos, and more. It’s a big tonal shift in comparison to the rest of the album, but well worth the journey. I’ve been neglecting a lot of what you might consider heavy/speed/thrash metal for a while, but Hell’s Heroes has made me reconsider a lot of my prior nose-upturning. Bütcher and the fest itself are highly recommended for anyone needing a reminder of what made metal so great in the first place.
666 Goats Carry My Chariot is available now through Osmose Productions. For more information on Bütcher, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Twilight Hour: Panopticon – “The White Cedars”
In case you haven’t been paying attention amongst all the other great metal that’s already come out so far this year, there’s a new Panopticon album Det hjemsøkte hjertet (“The Haunted Heart”) coming very soon. It will serve as the closing chapter of the “Laurentian trilogy” that began with …and Again into the Light, and from what I’ve heard about it from those In The Know™ it’s gonna be incredible. We were recently treated to the first single “The White Cedars,” the album’s mid-point in terms of track number. Right away there’s a welcome return to the reverb-heavy, blackgaze-y trem picking that shimmers like an aurora above the blast beats and heavy chords, a sound that takes me right back to my first Panopticon experience on Roads to the North. Charlie Anderson’s folksy violin melodies in the eventual break from the blasts are aglow with passion and beauty, and per the man himself there’s by far more of his string playing on the album than we’ve ever heard before.
The song’s slow, crushing climax features guest cleans from Vemod’s Jan Even Åsli who serves as a perfect companion to Anderson’s ever-building strings. It’s not the most dynamic song in the Panopticon catalog, there’s not much here that we haven’t heard before, but that still puts it miles above basically every other artist in the world of atmospheric black metal. My biggest takeaway from “The White Cedars” is what it showcases in terms of the production job from Spenser Morris this time around; this might be his finest work thus far. I’ve not always been the biggest fan (especially …and Again) but this time around a perfect balance has been struck between the soft and heavy, dark and light… a sound as robust and full as the finest beer from Lunn’s Hammerheart Brewing. I cannot wait for what the rest of this sure-to-be AOTY contender has in store.
Det hjemsøkte hjertet will be available May 8th through Bindrune Recordings (North America) and Nordvis Produktion (Europe). For more information on Panopticon, check out their Instagram page.
— Colin
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