The lights turn dim and we hear a voice that introduces us into a darkness just about to take off like a space shuttle when the first riff appears. It fits perfectly with the dark atmosphere created by the ambience preceding it. This way starts a voyage not into space, but involving the inner-space landscapes that came out of the writings of the German Expressionist artists Jakob Van Hoddis (Morgens), Alfred Lichtenstein (Fern, Unwetter) and Georg Trakl (De Profundis, Klage), guided by the hands of Falk, the man behind Fluoryne.
There is something to the sound anyway that makes our trip not that disturbing: the sound by which we travel is clear, clinically bright and clean, depurated, which serves to better introduce us into the thing without losing any detail. Yeah, the production is of the sharp, clean and cold ones, like in Satyricon’s Rebel Extravaganza or Thorns’ Thorns, but it doesn’t mean we are losing dynamics here. Also, the sound comes quite suitable for the type of music, mixing black metal riffing with industrial influences and many dark ambiences. The mixing work is, maybe, for this particular case of mixing ambiences, beats and cold black modern metal, perfection, or almost. Also, this is German Expressionist poetry turned into music and so the production is intended to extend the expression of every concept, so it contributes to the clinical, anonym, cold and distant urban landscapes and contrast depicted by the poems on which the album is based.
I have mentioned contrast. Well, not all is modern cold black metal here, there is a lot of ambience and even warmer moments with clean vocals, and even some doomy riffs, too. There are several charming moments that consist of chants over synthetic or more metallic and doomy ambiences. In fact, the mix of different personalities (poets, music writer, guest performers for harsh vocals, clean vocals and drums), makes for a quite varied picture, so varied that it may leave with the impression of being short, or it may be that I want just more because I like it so badly. Yes, I have very good words for this review but I’m trying to be a bit objective, for the moment. Well, let us run deeper into this sonic unwetter (thunderstorm)…
Before I get lost, I have to mention the work done by the guest musicians, the three of them doing a great work, the cold grim voices, the warmer clean vocals (great performances that really add to the atmospheres) and the cold and exact, dirgey drumming.
All the songs share feeling and somehow have a continuity, even if each song is based on a different poem. To me, it could have been all the same track, because of the changing textures and constant contrasts at first listens you don’t realise when it’s the end of a track and another one starts, it just naturally flows. But, as they are different poems, thus different songs. The thing is that the whole sounds very compacted and consistent. And the effect of transmitting different feelings is effective. Even if we don’t know about the lyrical concept of each individual song, all they spread emotions and evoke landscapes perfectly on the listener’s mind, if you take the time into it, because if you are expecting more of a straight kind album you can try any other thing, this album is for giving it several listens, and to do it properly, drifting over the sonic details and, if possible, leaving oneself open to being haunted by the poems and their evoken images, too.
The songs’ structure mostly fits with that of the poems, producing a soundtrack, or if you prefer an interpretation, that works very well, at least for me. The songs alone, make a wonderful album, but together with the poems it gets to a different point of view; maybe more complete, because of the changing pace of some songs, that could appear not very consistent on content and structure but sure do work together as a concept, taking the expression and the particular emotion it carries until the very end, in different ways, via different poems.
-Adryuu
VITALS:
Release: 25th December 2009
Label: Lost Souls Graveyard
Avantgenre: Expressionist Black Ambient Metal
Duration: 43 Minutes
Origin: Germany
Official site: http://www.fluoryne.de/
Review online since: 26.12.2009 / 23:27:08
TRACKLIST:
01 – Morgens
02 – Fern
03 – Unwetter
04 – De Profundis
05 – Klage
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