Blut Aus Nord fans please stop recommending Ultima Thule to new comers that album is the worst place they could start at. Yes, it is a good debut but compared to Memoria Vetusta it doesn't hold ground, at all. It comes out as this long drown out atmospheric burzum/bathory clown minus the good riffs. So please if anyone asks for BAN recommendations do not insist on it, Fathers of Icy Age is so much a better representative of their talent and one of their best.

Personally I think the debut is a terrific album and still stands as a highlight in their discography, and I have to say I will continue recommending it especially to listeners of black metal who might find it the best 'in' to the more varied releases that followed.

Thanks! I'm downloading the official FLAC and will tell you about the sound quality when I get my own rip.


Please, don't exaggerate.

I like the icy aesthetics and it's competent technically, but it's another BaN album I can't quite get into. It just sounds like there wasn't much thought put into it and the notes selection don't seem to have a lot of rhyme or reason, almost as if they were selected randomly. The riffs are too often this featureless landscape of tremelo, nothing standing out to me, and the vocals are buried. The songs don't have peaks or troughs, no drama. The Work Which Transforms God is the only thing by them I've really been able to appreciate at any level.

Are you talking about (1995) Blut aus Nord - Ultima Thulée or (1996) Blut aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age?

P.S: Off topic but interesting (about the transcode):
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=89306&view=findpost&p=760572

Please, stop being a fanboy.
Ultima Thulee is his weakest release and as a debut it is quite understandable.

I don't consider myself one BUT I'll listen to both albums again and tell you, right?

Weaker than MoRT?

Yeah, MoRT and Odinist are the weakest he's done if you ask me, although I am aware some love them they don't hit the mark for me. As far as I'm concerned the Liber stuff is second-tier in the band's catalogue as well - better than MoRT and Odinist and with suitably grainy evil atmosphere, but not nearly as memorable as other works Vindsval released since 2009. Ultima Thulee really is a corking entry to Blut Aus Nord's legacy whichever way you turn it. I would play it now but am on the first album of the 777 sequence and have OCD.

For certain. In terms of originality, there is nothing like it in black metal. With it, Vindsval demonstrates his mastery of his art by completely overturning it. MoRT certainly marks a movement toward uncharted territory within the genre. Some compare it in that regard to DSO's Fas, but the influences of other works are obvious on that one while in MoRT Vindsval crafts something nearly out of nothing.

Note: my keyboard autocorrects Vindsval to Cereal and I was eating cereal when typing that

MVIII

While I agree with you that MoRT is amazing, a_v, I also think it's silly to tell people to not recommend Ultima Thulée. If you think the recommendee would enjoy it based on what you know of their tastes, I don't see the problem. It's an incredible album and deserves ongoing exposure. I also fail to see how it sounds like a "Burzum/Bathory clown." I mean that just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, even in the sense that you intended.

And UT the weakest in the catalogue? Fuckin' serious, man?

Weakest Blut: A tie between 777 Cosmosophy and The Mystical Beast Of Rebellion.

Mort is an album I don’t really have an opinion of in anyway. As stupid as it sounds, I don’t like or dislike it, nor do I think its just “okay”. I think it’s the kind of album that I would need to spend a lot of time with to come to any conclusion. That’s said, it’s been a good 5 years since I listened to it but there’s nothing making me want to give it another shot. Who knows? It took me 10 years, no word of a lie, to get into Emperor’s Prometheus and I love that album now.

Odinist on the other hand, RULES. Sure it sounds like a watered down, more accessible The Work Which etc but there’s an amazingly ominous feel throughout and some killer riffs and melodies.

As for, MVIII its starting to work its magic on me. Wasn’t blown away initially but its definitely making a better impression with every listen. I’m really enjoying the Swedish-style melodic black metal approach too. Not at all what I expected but a pleasant surprise.

Hah, that's funny, to me it sounds more like a streamlined, accessible MoRT . It was written during the same time period and you can definitely hear the similarities in the melodies and harmonies when you listen to them back to back.

.......and Mort of course being a more over the top TWWTG. Yeah, you're right. The similarities to both albums can't be ignored.

I think Odinist or 777: Sects are the best entry point for this band. Those 2 albums imo cover all the ground that BAN took to extreme levels one way or the other on different releases before and after. Someone listening to Ultima Thule would have no idea that the same band could drop The Work or MoRT a few years later, and might dismiss the band completely. Enititely different and almost polar opposite styles

Yeah, Odinist its slightly repetitive and boring at times, though it has its momments. Mort is a great piece of shit, a joke, but its my opinion of course.

Agreed on this one. Odinist might be the second album I'd choose though, as the monotonous tempo/general dynamism of the album, while it works well with the seasoned listener, might put first-timers off. 777 - Sect(s) is definitely the most well-rounded of all of BaN's back catalogue, and, perhaps, plays it the most safe. It has the most melody of all the dissonant albums, and still has enough industrial to give a better idea of the band's overall sound in comparison to the early works or the more recent Memoria Vetusta entries.
Another good starting point may be the What Once Was... series, as they're more straight-forwardly black metal than most of the other dissonant-styled albums, while maintaining enough dynamism and song-craft to be not as hostile as the blistering, Hate Forest-esque Mystical Beast, or the mid-paced pummeling of Odinist.

On that, I think the WOW... ep series is much stronger than the 777 series, despite that both are a bit retrogressive, I'd rather hear BaN playing high-tempo complex black/death in the vein of Arizmenda or Portal, than hear a watered-down TWWTG (Sect(s)), Godflesh-knockoff break-beat over-use (Desanctification), or (my favorite in the series), cheery club-industrial (Cosmosophy).

It arrived. It lay in storage, alone and untouched. I rescued it after hours. There were three of us. Two safe-keepers, and myself. The Saturnian Poetry was conveyed safely in the sacred black bag, emblemed with a skull in leaves, to the enclave. It arrived.

MVII> MVI> MVIII

Still a great release in my opinion but lacking behind the other two Memoria Vetustas

I'll disagree. I think MVII is a masterpiece and regardless of what Blut Aus Nord releases in the future, that strand of their history has a high benchmark and even their worst albums in that vein are better than some bands' careers. But right now, I'd rather put MVIII on over MVI any day of the week.