In last year’s review of 777: The Desantification, I noted the evolution of transcendental melody and ethereal majesty from the uglier, first part of the trilogy to the second chapter, and wondered if that arc would continue into 777: Cosmosophy. Over the past year, Blut Aus Nord (just Vindsval now) has continued to develop and expand its palette for this conclusion – resulting in some remarkable sonic additions – but there’s still plenty of the grimy, industrial-tinged murk that defined the band’s atmospheric middle period. So it appears that the answer is yes, though the brilliantly lit summit is mostly clouded in gloom.

Cosmosophy is made up of five final Epitomes, numbered XIV through XVIII, for a 45 minute running time. Like the previous two chapters, this is not metal of the cathartic or aggressive variety. It’s mood music for the dark; a film score for nightmares and starscapes. Each track here still maintains the same deliberate pace that’s kept time for the entire 777 cycle – one long, flowing and somewhat monotonous trudge. This simplistic rhythm creates a steady framework for bright, gleaming and coldly alien melodies that writhe and twist in the air like a metallic aurora borealis. Much of the album plays out in this mid-range, droning landscape, with few truly quiet moments (the delicate, mystical dirge at the start of XVI) or harsh and discordant clatter (the final minutes of that same track).

Epitomes XIV and XVI also feature Vindsval switching from his usual rasps to a new clean vocal style that sounds both hymnal and haunted. In Epitome XVII, his vocals become even more plaintive, and as they float atop a plodding beat and rain-soaked keys, he sounds like The Cure’s Robert Smith, and the music a blackened cut from their seminal goth mopefest Disintegration. It’s this track that shows how far and how boldly Blut Aus Nord has ranged from the early black metal blizzard of Ultima Thulee or Fathers of the Icy Ages.

The new vocal approach in the largely industrial-ambient Epitome XV, however, is nothing less than annoying. It’s a sneering spoken word, all in French, and where spoken word in other native languages like Finnish or Norwegian (or even English, for that matter) manage to sound rough or or savage or even sublime, French doesn’t carry that same menace, at least not for me. Luckily, the soaring and tortured arias of guitar and choral voices in the track’s second half elevate it back to the majestic level achieved by the opener. Cosmosophy closes out with a more jagged (yet still mid-paced) industrial stomp like something from The Work Which Transforms God. It’s a fitting outro for the entire trilogy, but brings nothing new aside from the coda: a formless void penetrated by a single whistling tone. It’s a speck of light being devoured by blackness, an epiphany fading and forgotten, and a quiet end for the entire 18-segment cycle.

Ultimately, I am left impressed by Cosmosophy, though not utterly transported. Taken as a whole, there is a satisfying arc and evolution across all of 777, though given the overall homogeneity of mood and pacing, I still wonder whether the ideas developed during this entire cycle couldn’t have been compressed into one album, or a double release at most. And yes, we got three Blut Aus Nord releases in the time that it takes other bands to release just one, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. 777’s most significant accomplishment is that it’s pushed the band far beyond what could be called metal in any kind of traditional sense. Although the roots here are obviously in black and doom metal, 777 sounds more like a collection of hymnals or a film score.

If we look back on Blut Aus Nord’s discography five years hence, will this trilogy be an important turning point that helped to broaden, stretch and diversify Vindsval’s overall aesthetic? Or was the trilogy just an interesting, albeit indulgent experiment (that still, despite its breadth, is still collectively not as satisfying as Memoria Vetusta II, with its more fluid, astral and dynamic compositions)? Perhaps 777 will become something like Trent Reznor/NIN’s Ghosts I-IV, a double album packed with short, choppy instrumentals from both halves of his sonic palette – the tinkly and soothing vs the discordant and bruising. In the grand scheme of Reznor’s career, the Ghosts release is somewhat of a novelty – a vehicle for experimentation freed from the constraints of typical album structure or even songwriting. Yet Ghosts was most successful in laying the template and clearing the path for Reznor’s Oscar-winning score for The Social Network, or his haunting work on David Fincher’s version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after that. I think that Vinsdval, given his dual palette of the celestial and the corrosive, could easily pair up with some of Europe’s shock and horror auteurs like Pascal Laugier (Martyrs, The Tall Man), Alexandre Bustillo (Inside, Livid), Tom Six (The Human Centipede) or Lars Von Trier (Antichrist, Melancholia). Music of this nightmarish richness deserves such visual accompaniment.

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