So I get this mysterious CD in the mail from Russia. I can’t tell who the band is or what the release is. Windows does not recognize it, so I start trying to decipher fonts and and initially think the band is Black Wisdom, and thanks to the internet I figure out the band is Grey Heaven Fall is the band, Black Wisdom is the album and it’s the band’s second album. The album sits on my ipod for a while amid about 450 other albums, doomed to fall through the cracks as many other have (sorry guys….).  Thankfully, the label starts asking me where the review is, so I make a concerted effort to listen to it, and fucking hell am I glad the label was persistent.

Black Wisdom is an excellent release. It’s a well crafted intelligent black/death metal record that seems to have parts of Aosoth, Leviathan,  Deathspell Omega, Behemoth, Secrets of the Moon, and Schammasch. It’s got some discordance, it’s got some brooding occult ambiance, it’s got rangy long songs, it’s got some death metal bite (the vocals are mostly lower register bellows), and importantly its got great song writing.

Opener “The Lord is Blissful in Grief” gives an initial burst of Deathspell Omega chaotic dissonance  and some weirdness around 3 and 6 minutes in. “Second track “Spirit of Oppression”, starts with the same dissonant swirl, but the 11 minute number soon descends into a more foreboding, ritualistic throb around 4 minutes in and a hymnal, sermon like last act and a swirling, solo laden, epic climax. “To the Doomed Sons of Earth”, as more traditional black metal vibe with higher register vocals and a frosty tremolo picked pace before taking a more somber, melancholic turn and a shift back to some blistering black metal for a sudden finish.

After a short interlude, “Sanctuary of Cut Tongues”  the band delivers the albums highlight in “Tranquility of the Possessed” which starts with a haunting acoustic throb before unleashing a truly magnificent, regal churn of blackened death majesty. It shows these guys have a masterful grasp of dynamics and control between chaos and undulating, creepy melodies. another 11 minute track, “That Nail in a Heart” ends the album with another top notch track. It slithers and blasts with a clever pace and main riff before an almost prog metal break and a big lumbering death metal transition. The track ends the album with a suitably paranoid acoustic, atmospheric fade out.

The production is decent, mid way between black and death metal, though I wish the bass was more prominent. But that’s a minor quibble with an otherwise stellar, out of left field, release from a Russian band I had never heard of but will certainly be paying close attention to from now on.

[Visit the band's website]

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