Even though we live in a globally connected world with email lists and blog feeds to keep you busy ad absurdum, it is not easy to be fully updated on the good and the bad stuff creeping up from the metal abyss. Therefore the release of CULT OF FIRE’s ”Triumvirát” via Demonhood productions last year passed me by completely. This is however an album that deserves some attention because what the Czechs have created may very well be the beginning of something well-worth following. The band is described as atmospheric black metal but there are actually more to it than that, and this distinguishes CULT OF FIRE from other bands with the same epithet. For example, there are esoteric and modern atmospheric elements but the use of organs and eerie guitar effects gives parts of the songs a 70’s occult rock/metal touch, while the continuous hammering of the rhythm section and the unpolished guitars takes you to the naissance of black metal. From the lurking sinister beginning of ”Závet’ Svetu” there is a growing uniqueness to the music that sneaks upon you and the album keep on growing for each run-through.
There is a certain relationship of the songs seen in how they are built: most of them have a speedy simplified drumming and raw guitars, upon which a slower layer of hoarse vocals and melodies act, and none of the songs are particularly riff-based. Still, each song has an exploratory character of its own and never becomes dull. The daunting vocals and the dissonant, hectic start of ”Cerna Aura” is contradictory pleasantly unpleasant, and becomes even more so thanks to the overwhelming experience of sounds later on, which makes you feel as if you were amidst the tortured souls in Dante’s Inferno. Other songs such as ”Z Jícnu Propastí” and ”Sluhové Vecného” have an emphasis on the rawness and genuinity of black metal, and it is on these that the organic and excellent guitar sound into the spotlight on “Triumvirát”.
The three bonus tracks that come with the release should encourage anyone who enjoys what they have heard so far to get their hands on a physical copy: “Horizont Temnoty” is an experimental story that has a constant fast bpm going yet still somehow has a slow feeling thanks to the synthesizer layers and cymbal markings, while both “Návrat Zrného Zla” and “Bytosti Z Prazdnoty” are raw and unconfortable. With “Triumvirát”, CULT OF FIRE has created a world of their own, which allow those of us who are longing for some sensory thrills to take our escape into and discover.
-Septikemi
VITALS:
Release: July 13th, 2012
Label: Demonhood Productions
Avantgenre: Atmospheric Black Metal
Duration: 57:40
Origin: Czech Republic
Official site: http://www.cultoffire.cz/news/
Review online since: 25.09.2013 / 15:54:15
| TRACKLIST:
01 – Závet’ Svetu |
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