Carpe Noctem - Latin for "seize the night"
Oh black metal ! Thou art comes in all forms and shapes, thou enchants and disquiet, thou redeems and desecrate and you ventured far away from your Scandinavian heritage. Carpe Noctem hails from a land brimming with blackened fury, Iceland and Vitrun is their second outing with their brand of black art. Their art revolves around dissonance and apocalyptic atmosphere, painting with their music a bleak desolate landscape that offers no hope. A year before a black metal record from Netherlands blew my mind, Kwintessens by Dodecahedron and Vitrum is the earthy sludgy counterpoint of the aforementioned record. They sit in a blackened throne between the primitive madness of the latest Infernal Coil record and the sate of the art calculated atonal chaos of Kwintessens. There is no sunshine and rainbows here.
They sing and scream in Icelandic, a tongue unknown to me. They chose to not to assuage their art in hopes of a more wider audience offered by English, that's bold but Google is our mutual friend and we translate. If the song titles are anything to go by Carpe Noctem is ambitious on Vitrun. They waste no time by giving us an intro track, Söngurinn sem ómar milli stjarnanna (The song that echoes between the stars) takes just 10 seconds to introduce the gravely growls of Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson. The song has tremolo picking melodic riffs that often ends with a wild whammy bar abuse and it almost calms down towards the end with one of the guitars playing chords while the other playing a trance like guitar solo.
Things start to get weird and disturbing from the next song Upplausn (Resolution) with one of the guitars giving Deathspell Omega-esque atonal chimes before the two guitars going for countermelodies in their riffing. At around midpoint Helgi Rafn Hróðmarsson goes for a tom heavy tribal drum pattern in a performance that almost rivals the latest Kriegsmaschine record. The atonal motif returns for one more lap with the tempo slowing down linearly to an explosion of reverbed spaced out guitars. Ambient noises of string scraping like those heard in Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est by the Italian band Ad Nauseam closes the song and that apparently isn't the only time we hear them in this record.
Og hofið fylltist af reyk (And the temple was filled with smoke) starts of in a doomy tempo and takes a good 3 minutes with it before going into a bouncy guitar lick. The two guitars make a short wild sprint at 5 minute mark before exploding into another tribal drumming and reverbed spooky guitars, you can almost smell the smoke rising from a pagan ritual. Hér hvílir bölvun (Here lies the curse) introduce clean guitars and cymbal flourishes and the disturbing string scraping, somewhere far away an orchestra is playing out of tune, clashing instruments one over the other. The song builds and builds to staccato chugs with squealing whammy infested guitars floating above. Hér hvílir bölvun leads to the shortest song of the album, the instrumental Úr beinum og brjóski (From bones and cartilage), with its clean guitar arpeggios, cinematic atmospherics and splashy cymbals the song build tension that is never resolved in its 4 minute duration.
It gets resolved however in an aggressive pounding of guitar and drums that introduce the final track the epic Sá sem slítur vængi flugunnar hefur náð hugljómun (The one who wears the wings have come to light). The most dissonant part of the album, the first few minutes is a clash of atonal melodies and intricate drum patterns and fills. The two guitarists Andri Þór Jóhannsson and Tómas Ísdal have souls of their own and if you are hearing this in your headphones you can hear the left ear and right ear guitars battling it out. At midpoint all of the chaos breaks down into cleanly plucked guitars and spacey whammy guitar squeals and from then on it all ends with the Ad Nauseam string scraping and synths building up tension that by now you are aware will never be resolved. The record ends and you are in disquietude
I wish I could write about the lyrics, going by the song-titles the subject should interest me. They write about mythology, mysticism and the lyrics are esoteric in nature. In a venture like this the production is an instrument in itself. The record sounds amazing, it sounds organic and live especially the drums and unlike the Pyrrhon and the Imperial Triumphant records Vitrum is inviting. It draws the listener in and keeps him/her immersed in it.
I am a big fan of album artworks devoid of band logo and album title. The art is credited to Stephen Wilson who also did the cover of Drowned the debut album of French band Barús. The art and the music is so unified in its vision that I won't be surprised if Carpe Noctem rewrote the music from their initial demos to aurally paint Wilson's art.
This record and Firtan's Okeanos lies on top of my black metal album of the year list. Both records are completely different in its scope and execution yet both quenches my thirst. Black metal has indeed ventured far and away from its Scandinavian roots. It is now an art that deserves critical writing and that's just what happened here.
They sing and scream in Icelandic, a tongue unknown to me. They chose to not to assuage their art in hopes of a more wider audience offered by English, that's bold but Google is our mutual friend and we translate. If the song titles are anything to go by Carpe Noctem is ambitious on Vitrun. They waste no time by giving us an intro track, Söngurinn sem ómar milli stjarnanna (The song that echoes between the stars) takes just 10 seconds to introduce the gravely growls of Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson. The song has tremolo picking melodic riffs that often ends with a wild whammy bar abuse and it almost calms down towards the end with one of the guitars playing chords while the other playing a trance like guitar solo.
Things start to get weird and disturbing from the next song Upplausn (Resolution) with one of the guitars giving Deathspell Omega-esque atonal chimes before the two guitars going for countermelodies in their riffing. At around midpoint Helgi Rafn Hróðmarsson goes for a tom heavy tribal drum pattern in a performance that almost rivals the latest Kriegsmaschine record. The atonal motif returns for one more lap with the tempo slowing down linearly to an explosion of reverbed spaced out guitars. Ambient noises of string scraping like those heard in Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est by the Italian band Ad Nauseam closes the song and that apparently isn't the only time we hear them in this record.
Og hofið fylltist af reyk (And the temple was filled with smoke) starts of in a doomy tempo and takes a good 3 minutes with it before going into a bouncy guitar lick. The two guitars make a short wild sprint at 5 minute mark before exploding into another tribal drumming and reverbed spooky guitars, you can almost smell the smoke rising from a pagan ritual. Hér hvílir bölvun (Here lies the curse) introduce clean guitars and cymbal flourishes and the disturbing string scraping, somewhere far away an orchestra is playing out of tune, clashing instruments one over the other. The song builds and builds to staccato chugs with squealing whammy infested guitars floating above. Hér hvílir bölvun leads to the shortest song of the album, the instrumental Úr beinum og brjóski (From bones and cartilage), with its clean guitar arpeggios, cinematic atmospherics and splashy cymbals the song build tension that is never resolved in its 4 minute duration.
It gets resolved however in an aggressive pounding of guitar and drums that introduce the final track the epic Sá sem slítur vængi flugunnar hefur náð hugljómun (The one who wears the wings have come to light). The most dissonant part of the album, the first few minutes is a clash of atonal melodies and intricate drum patterns and fills. The two guitarists Andri Þór Jóhannsson and Tómas Ísdal have souls of their own and if you are hearing this in your headphones you can hear the left ear and right ear guitars battling it out. At midpoint all of the chaos breaks down into cleanly plucked guitars and spacey whammy guitar squeals and from then on it all ends with the Ad Nauseam string scraping and synths building up tension that by now you are aware will never be resolved. The record ends and you are in disquietude
I wish I could write about the lyrics, going by the song-titles the subject should interest me. They write about mythology, mysticism and the lyrics are esoteric in nature. In a venture like this the production is an instrument in itself. The record sounds amazing, it sounds organic and live especially the drums and unlike the Pyrrhon and the Imperial Triumphant records Vitrum is inviting. It draws the listener in and keeps him/her immersed in it.
I am a big fan of album artworks devoid of band logo and album title. The art is credited to Stephen Wilson who also did the cover of Drowned the debut album of French band Barús. The art and the music is so unified in its vision that I won't be surprised if Carpe Noctem rewrote the music from their initial demos to aurally paint Wilson's art.
This record and Firtan's Okeanos lies on top of my black metal album of the year list. Both records are completely different in its scope and execution yet both quenches my thirst. Black metal has indeed ventured far and away from its Scandinavian roots. It is now an art that deserves critical writing and that's just what happened here.
LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT
Some people says Black metal guys are awesome. The person who is standing in center of the photo, Firstly i thought "oh, a Girl". Then I understood he is a guy by looking at his belt. I hope he will not kill me and take the pic to make artwork to revenge of this comment.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how you found the gender by looking at a belt. He has mustache and a small goatee in his face. Hence he is a guy.
DeleteBTW your pic is already used to make an artwork, it will be published tomorrow. Members of Carpe Noctem should be happy for I took revenge for them :)
Live long and prosper :)