Véhémence - Ordalies (2022)

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Nowadays whenever I see anything that looks like this album (crudely illustrated) or is slapped with a "medieval", "epic" or sometimes even an "atmospheric" black metal tag I approach with the same type of caution Nosferatu might have towards a garlic factory. I used to gobble it up, things of this ilk. But now that I'm a decade older and grumpy it just mostly sounds like overproduced wankery with no real resonance—Aural or otherwise.

Véhémence of France completely deflect any suspicions that this album is just another cookie-cutter black metal record parading around as half-baked pseudo-traditional medieval songs infused with the barbarity of black metal. Ordalies for sure leans heavily into that medieval tone, borrowing chants and melodies that seemingly harken back to the crusades, but it's done with such poise that none of it feels contrived or lame, which is where most of the other battalion of metal bands fail when writing this sort of thing.

Right off the rip this record blasts into a barrage of blistering black metal built upon the back of uncompromisingly frigid tremolo riffs which are layered upon a foundation of equally pummelling drums, both galloping, working eagerly in unison as Hyvermor's vocals scratch some primordial itch. His range (along with the group chants) carry with them a powerful weight. A genuinely antiquated atmosphere permeates every track on this album with absolutely clarity and force, which is really where 95% of the other bands fall short for me. One of the reasons I still like and listen to either Myrkgrav, Windir, Bathory or even old Moonsorrow is that they still strike a chord. No wankery, real fucking resonance.

It's completely negligent to talk about this album without mentioning how defiantly catchy it all is. Catchier than syphilis at the greasy truck stop with a strip-club called "Last Dance at Peeler's". When the first stream came out, I replayed it in full a second time once I made my way through the first listen. I never do that. Now of course that's my experience, but if you disagree you're just wrong man, and that's on you.

This is a mandatory album in 2022, don't sleep on it… Go ahead, play it more than the new Deathspell Omega record… I'd understand!

Véhémence - Ordalies (bandcamp)

Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir (2019)

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I've been waiting a long time for Teitanblood to unearth another full-length album. I don't know, is 5 years a long time? I guess so.

Whenever the conversation of bestial death metal should come up, Teitanblood should be one of the first bands uttered, along with a choice few. Purging Tongues still might be one of my favourite EP's of all time (I put some words to it back in 2012) and everything else that has been put forth by the band has gallivanted with ferocious cadence over anything else riding under the same banner. There is a certain gravitational immensity behind the atmosphere, an elemental force that churns its way through each track with such barbarity that it invokes something palpable – I'm not talking the same animality that a band like Revenge or Irkallian Oracle emit – but something cut from the same cloth  with a similar signal stretching upward, it's all together crushing and it's energy is a necessary force in this world of polarities. It's no mistake as to why Fenriz and Nocturno put a Teitanblood patch on the album cover of Darkthrone's Circle The Wagons.

The Baneful Choir has solidified it's spot as one of the albums to be reckoned with this year, all whirlwind heat and spiralling death metal. This album will appear somewhere on my albums of the year.

Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir (bandcamp)