Old Blood for a New Moon

I absolutely adore just about everything about Finnish black metal. The country has become such an obvious and powerful example of how it's possible to remain true to the genre's traditions while leaving a series of marks on the sound. First, there's that unified Finnish approach that has that sort of "post-victory depression" vibe in the tremolo melodies, often alongside primitive punky powerchord riffs that owe much to Darkthrone. But then, it's all in the ways that each and every worthwhile band from the country (and it's a hell of a lot of them, I'd wager) manages to take these relatively simple ingredients, never straying too far from the tried and true, yet finding new and wonderful ways of expressing their own artistry with the same communal set of paints that all of their peers have access to and use regularly.

Kêres entranced me for a number of reasons. Despite being seemingly in the same orbit as a lot of other cool Finnish acts, this band has managed to stay completely anonymous. Whether it's a side project of someone higher profile, or perhaps some guys who'd simply rather not be associated with a bunch of black metal miscreants, I'm not exactly sure. Apart from that, this EP has some really intriguing cover art, with hyper-detailed etching meeting sort of primal cubist sensibilities, with a nicely contrasting color scheme to boot. The icing on the cake's the really cool title this little album's got, which stirs up a lot of really great imagery.

The music here is mostly midpaced and just slightly off-kilter. The guitars are multitracked pretty heavily from what I can tell, tuned low and with a lot of sort of harsh, solid-state distortion that would probably sound pretty bad on its own but when layered this heavily gives sort of a huge, Aeternus-like vibe to the guitar tone, which is something that I don't encounter all that often but is certainly a welcome change of pace from the more typically icy or tube-driven tones favored by many of their compatriots. This tone is utilized mostly in low-string tremolo powerchord patterns that stalk around a bit and, while they don't have much in the way of blunt force, they also don't often cut with blades of ice. This style of riffing is used mainly on the ritualistic opener "A Winter Fire" and then especially on the murky "For a Heroine Ideal." Being Finns, though, this project is bound by ancient law to inject some Finnmelodies in there somehow. Sometimes they're just sort of hinted at, vague references in those nocturnal panther-in-the-shadows powerchord riffs where the melody is sort of implied and then avoided. That probably sounds like a load of "it's the notes you DON'T hear" malarkey, but I'll be damned if I don't hear it. Other times, though, the band simply can't help themselves and let the melodies take over, such as in the second track "In Chains" or, even more strongly, in the potent closing track "Blood Drawn in the North."

While I definitely appreciate this band's unique take on things, and I do come back to them fairly often just for a bit of a refreshing take on things, I can't help but hear their music and long for other bands who just wring better, more emotionally-charged melodies out of their guitar strings more often than Kêres do. This still might be of interest to folks who absolutely can't get enough of the stuff, such as myself, or for those who prefer a bit more esoteric black metal and find more typical modern Finnish black metal a bit too direct in its melodies and riffing.