Vindsval is as much an explorer as he is a musician, two roles that share a taste for adventure and a tendency to daydream. After the Lovecraftian nightmares of the Disharmonium cycle, comprising the albums Undreamable Abysses and Nahab, what new mysterious lands could Blut Aus Nord possibly take us to? The artwork and title of this new album, Ethereal Horizons, provide the first clues: it will be cosmic (surprise!). The label Debemur Morti Productions states that Vindsval connects all the elements that have defined his work over more than thirty years of experimentation. So far, the terrain is familiar, a word which, when applied to Blut Aus Nord's black metal, means ‘unpredictable’.
The dissonant frenzy of the two previous albums and their darkness oozing hallucinatory madness seem far away, while the melody of Shadows Breathe First seems to tend towards a form of enlightenment. Clear vocals creep in, with echoes of Curian cold wave, and the fast rhythm gives this introduction a conquering energy. Then, halfway through, the universe explodes, the progressive touches spiralling into a hypnotic and fascinating esoteric incantation haunted by distant lamentations. It is grandiloquent, captivating and inspired. Vindsval turns time upside down, seeming to both stop and disrupt it as the different layers overlap and blend together in a fluid, natural way.
Blut Aus Nord takes us back a few years to the era of their album Hallucinogen, whose organic warmth and breathing space Disharmonium had put on hold. It's black metal, of course, with just the right amount of chaos and aggression, enough mystical opacity (the liturgical choirs in the intro to Secclusion) and spectral voices wandering in the background like sobs (What Burns Nos Listens), but Blut Aus Nord takes on a more colourful palette, with a few post-rock mirages piercing the darkness. As usual, the balance is perfectly mastered, with atmospheric pauses arriving like revelations where sacred mysteries mingle with introspective journeys.
We are always impressed by the scale of Blut Aus Nord's music, which combines the grandiose and epic with the introspective and dreamlike. Halfway through the album, The Fall Opens the Sky is a striking illustration of this, with its twists and turns that easily do without vocals. Blut Aus Nord takes the time to pause for breath before plunging into the abyss and, in doing so, rising above it. There is always this feeling of immensity, both in the spaces to be explored and in the possibilities, in the creativity. Fans of both cosmic and inner journeys will be delighted, while more deviant oneirologists will regret the relentless and unspeakable industrial coldness of the darker experiences of previous albums. Darkness, light, we no longer know, and it no longer matters as the listener dissolves into the cosmic immensity of The End Becomes Grace, whose layers conclude the album on an enigmatic note, exuding a fascination for something far too vast and timeless to be fully grasped, a monolith with hidden powers around which we gather to try to unravel its secrets. The same could be said of the music.
