During past Halloweens, I’ve set the mood for trick-or-treaters by playing horror movie music – The Exorcist, Halloween, Poltergeist – and baroque Cradle of Filth instrumentals out of the windows. If I really wanted to terrify our visitors this year though, I could switch it up for the new Blut Aus Nord. Then again, it might be better suited as the soundtrack for a pay-to-scream haunted house, an abandoned asylum, the Upside-Down, or a trans-dimensional, ichor-spattered abbatoir.
Deus Salvatis Meæ (“God of My Salvation”) is from the ‘ugly’ half of Blut Aus Nord’s oeuvre. (Actually, if you’re keeping score it’s probably Vindsval’s dominant expression by now.) You’ll find none of the alien, astral beauty of the Memoria Vetusta series here or the sepulchral, inverted grace of the 777 trilogy. This is more in line with the boiler-room industrial aesthetic of The Work Which Transforms God, MORT, or last year’s Codex Obscura Nomina split with Ævangelist, though it drops that last album’s beats in favor of sludgy, doomy crawls and frenzied blastbeat mayhem.
That’s not to say it’s a more of a doom or black metal album, though. Melodies, when they do emerge, are simple and repeating, and each song’s structure sounds like it’s about to collapse into decay. It’s best to just absorb the whole experience as one continuous, plague-infected fever dream, though there are moments that stand out. “Apostasis” sounds like backwards-masked Slayer played at half-speed, while “Revelatio” lurches back and forth between several distinct and cogent (well, relatively speaking) segments. The rest of the album yowls, slithers, pulses, and screams by like some Lovecraftian incantation. Ambience warbles, melts, and re-knits its flesh, keening strings and Arabic chants rise out of the gloom, and the vocals are a corroded gargle. Sounds lovely, right?
As a work of sonic necromancy, Deus Salvatis Meæ is impressive, creative, and thoroughly deranged. Your mileage may vary if you prefer your compositions less… unraveled, but if this is your sort of thing, then perhaps your mental state is more ready to accept its gifts.
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This is the first review I’ve read for this album which doesn’t express disappointment. Being a devotee to the “Memoria Vetusta” spectrum of their discography, the industrial side of BaN has never quite clicked with me, aside from “The Work Which Transforms God.” That torturous hellscape happens to be the soundtrack to which I’ve handed out candy on Halloween for over a decade. Good review, nonetheless.
on Oct 25th, 2017 at 17:37@Rabid1 – yeah, MVII is one of my favorite metal albums, period, so of course I would have also loved more in that style – however Blut Aus Nord/Vindsval has done a lot more in this style over the years, so I felt it was beside the point to pine for something else vs just taking this at face value. (Besides I’m pretty sure I have already stated my preference for MVII when I covered some of the 777 stuff…)
on Oct 27th, 2017 at 01:46I’ve always preferred this side of Blut Aus Nord over the MMV side, so this hits the spot.
on Oct 27th, 2017 at 09:16Yeah this is gnarly and heinous. Another slam dunk from France’s most brain-bending black metal band.
on Nov 9th, 2017 at 23:12