No other branch of heavy metal has seen more twists, turns, knots and other various amalgamations than black metal. Blame any number of its trailblazers’ glaring affinity for highfalutin’, or the fact that its root hideousness makes for an ideal counterbalance to generous pinches of elegance, the fact remains that our genre’s crudest appendage has become the belle of the ball in a world where James Blake and Agalloch share equal spotlight through NPR.
Unlike a number of my orthodox fussbudget accomplices, however, I don’t really mind witnessing the softening/widening of black metal’s midriff, partly because I feel the genre’s predilection toward egocentrism makes an ideal setting for a very pure form of artistic expression (“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has ever known” ~ Oscar ‘Do These Tights Make My Ass Look Big?’ Wilde), and also because there’s still enough of the Old Guard slinking about in the underbelly for all who are willing to dig. Yes, some of it might require you to dust off that old tape deck and join the chase for # __/100 in a very limited run, but even the cassette-haters out there can get down with one of the three available formats offered up by Negative Existence Records for the latest blast of tundric permafrost courtesy of Russia’s Old Wainds.
Of all the available black metal descriptors, “cold” is the most critical. Period. Coldness in terms of overall atmosphere, temperament and rawness; and friend, Old Wainds has been delivering the hoariest frost this side of Mt. Elbrus’s brass-bra’d teet for nearly twenty years.
Absolutely nothing folky, post-y, crusty or gaze-y inside this record’s perfectly sufficient 39 minutes – just 12,000,000,000 BTUs of frigid riffing and boreal snarling wrapped around a surprisingly infectious rhythm section that flips between breakneck speeds and a slower, triumphant gallop within every song. It’s a sound that comes across as deceptively simple on the surface, and I suppose it is, but at this point, Izbor (drums), Morok (guitars) and Kholdogor (bass/vocals) work so precisely as a unit that the end result is nothing short of thrilling, particularly once repeated spins bring the album’s nuances crackling to the surface.
Whether it’s the driving tank-punch midpoint of opener “Ascension,” the epic lift towards the close of “Insane Stellar Race,” the unexpectedly exhilarated rip of “Refracting the Light,” or the dark, graceful manner in which “Stoneweaver” closes the show, Nordraum packs enough curious shading to black metal’s model tenets to make the album a clear choice for anyone who’s grown a bit weary of the seemingly infinite number of bands trying to push the genre into uncharted territory. (“Obey the principles without being bound by them.” ~ Bruce ‘Does Your Ass Look Kicked in These Tights?’ Lee.)
But yeah, that “As Spilled Blood They Sprout” cut – it’s the true pearl of this particular Siberian trek. Majestic, ripping and packed with every ounce of the elitist up-turned-nosery you could hope for in a black metal tune, and it’s capped with one of the year’s best riff breakouts around 3:15 that rolls perfectly into a smooth, slow, grim strut to its very end.
Adding further to the album’s gratification: 1) the fact that the driving force behind the band’s overall lyrical approach is mostly entrenched in freezing your balls off and reveling in that fact. Although, Nordraum appears to stretch those boundaries a bit: “Insane Stellar Race?” “Inquiring of Secrecies?” That’s some unidentified flying whatthefuckery right there, comrades. At least I hope so. Regardless, Old Wainds bends away from the Luciferian Philosophy and Metaphysical Satanism that’s been boxing people’s ears for a healthy stretch now, and although all shadowy avenues are welcome, it’s refreshing to get back to Abbathian basics.
And 2) Nordraum was “mixed with vintage analog equipment on 1/4 inch tape,” so while the digital route offered up on Negative Existence’s site is obviously the quickest and easiest, either of the two vinyl options will prove superior, just as it should be.
Want progression? There’s obviously more than enough out there willing to fight for your buck. But if you’d rather spend some quality time remembering just how exhilarating it feels to race with the old wolves again, Nordraum‘s precisely your ticket to rip.
Cold-blooded, Old Wainds. Cold-blooded.
