The second batch, right here:
URFAUST "Geist ist Teufel" (Goatowarex, 2004)
Particular strains of black metal have been subject to an ongoing process of simplification and purification ever since BATHORY decided that even the sparseness of VENOM and MOTÖRHEAD was not nihilistic enough. Transilvanian Hunger is the archetypal modern example of minimalistic black metal, and where DARKTHRONE themselves have since gone on to elaborate on the Metal (capital M) parts it contains, URFAUST has taken as their own that other part – the obvious folk music influence – and derived from it what essentially amounts to post-modern folk music, presented in the aesthetic guise of black metal. Geist ist Teufel is as primitive, as stripped down as metal can probably get – with only a single guitar and a single drum track remaining underneath the haunting (and catchy!) vocals, there is nothing left to remove, nothing veiling the essence. If traditional folk music was sung around a campfire the evening after battle, URFAUST might be sung by hoarse throats gathered around some burning barrel in nights following the nuclear holocaust.
DARK TRANQUILLITY "Fiction" (Century Media, 2007)
After a pair of relatively lifeless and transient albums in Haven (2000) and Damage Done (2002,) DARK TRANQUILLITY found their way back to, if not originality and relevance, then at least vitality and interest, with 2005's Character. What was started there has come full circle here. What DARK TRANQUILLITY has seemingly rediscovered on Fiction is that they are a metal band, that there is nothing wrong with being a metal band, and that it is still okay to be riff oriented, play solos, and play blast beats. There was a time when "melodic death metal" was in some circles an insult so grave that even the purveyors of said genre started feeling ashamed -- this is the time where DARK TRANQUILLITY decide to tell those factions to fuck off, and to do what they do best. Fiction is sophisticated without being pretentious, and fits snugly within a style without becoming parody of the same. Where each of DARK TRANQUILLITY's other albums of the decade had its share of less than inspired material, Fiction has worthy and memorable songs from start to end, with at least one true classic in "Inside the Particle Storm", a menacing, brooding -- and fully brilliant -- anthem of total death.
AGALLOCH "Ashes Against the Grain" (The End, 2006)
After years of experimentation, with factions of the band seeming to nearly tear its fabric apart by pulling fiercely in different directions, it seemed with Ashes Against the Grain that AGALLOCH was determined to produce a cohesive, solid whole again. To some observers at the time, it appeared doubtful that AGALLOCH would even return to doing metal music again, but as it turned out, this album might be less threatening to the typical metal fan than either of the other two full-lengths. Ashes Against the Grain has the aftertaste of a band in the midst of the realization that they have developed -- and come to be associated with -- a particular style and sound. Therefore, they stand in the unenviable position of having to, at least partly, choose between retreading old water -- doing what is expected of them -- and entering unknown territory completely, maybe failing.
Though it is not the entire truth, much of Ashes Against the Grain’s musical journey is travel along safe paths. It is neither Pale Folklore nor The Mantle part 2, but it is lyrically and musically unmistakably AGALLOCH. You expect AGALLOCH to write a line like "you long to die in her pale arms, crystalline", and they do. It appears, to some extent, an album of forced, not natural progression, and in 2006, AGALLOCH do not perform with as fiery a spirit within their original paradigm of snow-and-woodsmoke metal as they once did -- where Pale Folklore transcended simple listening to conceive worlds and voyages, Ashes Against the Grain is an album of good songs, recorded in a studio, by human musicians. It is sober where Pale Folklore was intoxicated, experienced where Pale Folklore was naïve -- therefore, weaker. Let the fact that this is still on the list, that this is one of the most well-crafted and thoughtful albums of the decade, then stand as testament to AGALLOCH’s uncommon creative ability and zest.
THE ANGELIC PROCESS "Coma Waering" (Paradigms, 2007)
Embodying the dual nature of fire, Coma Waering rages like a firestorm of purification burning away all falsity, sweeping the mind with flames of passionate catharsis, but is at the same time warm, welcoming, comforting. Like organic, decaying GODFLESH, or an uncontrolled, destructive MY BLOODY VALENTINE run through a filter of the most abstract, atmospheric black and doom metal, the album teeters on the very edge of rock-based music, extracting, expanding upon and turning into its essence the atmospherics that exist only as involuntary but essential companion in more traditional works. Welcoming, comforting – the soul shivers in awe as Coma Waering pulls into its bittersweet inferno, establishing sobering distance to usual reality. At times confused and unfocused, it is not a perfect album, but genius somewhat unrefined is still genius.
DOLORIAN "Voidwards" (Wounded Love, 2006)
Of the manifold sicknesses plaguing our present time and culture, narcissism is one of the most rampant. The possibility of everyone to now make their voice heard is often confused with duty, and so every slobbering idiot of the world now loves to emphasise the emptiness of their skulls by writing “blogs” of monumental meaninglessness. In the same manner, members of black metal bands love to write “manifests” in broken middle English “explaining” (confusing) their supposed “ideology” in booklets and on MySpace. In a nearly completely rotten extreme metal scene, where it is more important to establish a pretty façade than to stuff it with substance; where substandard music is frequently accepted and lauded as long as it is referred to as “anti-cosmic ritual chaos magick,” it is refreshing to know a band uninterested in advertising themselves or their superiority, uninterested in anything except exploring a world of art and obscurity entirely their own.
DOLORIAN as a band, the music they create, the lyrical themes: all enigmas solved only with considerable effort. The musical style, obviously at one point derived from Nordic black and death-doom metal but now far from any paths well-travelled, is one of crushing heaviness though performed mainly with clean, heavily chorused psychedelic-dreamy guitars and whispered vocals. Voidwards is one of the least immediate albums I have ever come across, but for those that its alluring mysticism call into its depths, a rewarding and entirely unique experience awaits that will last well into the 2010’s. DOLORIAN is one of the most profoundly real and relevant metal bands active today.
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