BLUT AUS NORD

Having blessed the extreme metal landscape with their avant-garde and celestial black metal for almost 30 years, BLUT AUS NORD remains unique. The prolific French band returns with album number 16, "Ethereal Horizons", a grand opus that synthesizes their previous output while remaining adventurous and fresh. The album isn't nearly as dark as their early work. In place of the former suffocating bleakness are walls of sound that encompass greater depth and complexity. While BLUT AUS NORD have never been content with regurgitating their back catalogue, traces of their music's original inhuman nature remain. "Ethereal Horizons", however, is notably more human and organic than all that they've recorded before.

"Shadows Breathe First" opens the epic release with a sedated movement that climbs toward grand, explosive black metal fury. The barrage of blasting mayhem interestingly and effectively provides the backdrop to calm and casual clean vocals that are somewhat goth rock in nature. Scathing screams are a part of the equation as well, underscoring the more violent and vitriolic moments. Immediately thereafter, "Seclusion" rekindles the band's original spirit, darker and more frigid at its core, catapulting rage with ominous synth lines and a biting roar that is as haunting as its twisted melodies.

"The Fall Opens The Sky" explodes with harrowing melodies, sharp guitars and majestic keyboards. "What Burns Now Listens", meanwhile, stands out with spectral melodic vocals that make way for robust wailing and an up-tempo drive. Elsewhere, the instrumental "Twin Suns Reverie" builds upon eerie keyboard lines to a summit that's ethereal and soothing. The grand finale, "The End Becomes Grace", is a marathon that's more than 12 minutes long, riveting, nuanced and complex. The song pulses, ebbs and flows, reaching a powerful, hypnotic and psychedelic conclusion.

"Ethereal Horizons" ultimately finds BLUT AUS NORD at its most developed and fully realized, not surprisingly showcasing the unit's curiosity and adventurousness. The album carries the band's foundational otherworldliness, marrying some industrial aspects with epic, celestial and transcendental black metal that seamlessly links with various sections that are seemingly informed by post rock and a progressive mindset.

"Ethereal Horizons" is aptly named, overtly describing BLUT AUS NORD's all-encompassing and enigmatic sound that's never been this rich, lush and layered. The warm synth lines add layers to the massive waves of sound that are astonishingly grand and beautiful, appropriately leading toward moments of blistering black metal. The very human undercurrent enhances the grandiosity of the album. This aspect of BLUT AUS NORD's evolution is interesting and enjoyable, to be sure. However, it's just not the same, not quite as magical. Their unforgiving coldness was arguably the band's greatest strength.

At the end of the day, "Ethereal Horizons" is a fantastic release that stands above the majority of what's out there in the world of black metal. It just falls short of the mark in the world of BLUT AUS NORD.