Vuohen siunaus

Ever have an album you're afraid to listen to out of apprehension about how it will stack up against a band's earlier works? Vuohen siunaus was definitely such an album for me. Korgonthurus aren't exactly one of the biggest names in black metal, or even in Finnish black metal for that matter, but their full length debut Marras holds a special place in my heart. Surrounded on all sides by shorter, more vitriolic songs on smaller-scope releases, that album contained two ponderous tracks of repetition-driven, emotionally draining black metal of the dreariest, most amazing sort. Fronted by the criminally overlooked Corvus (the best vocalist Horna ever had, bar none), that album was essentially exactly what I was looking for in music generally and black metal specifically when I came across it: desolate, forlorn, a knife twisting into an ashen, dead heart. The album's very organic, charcoal drawing cover art and indecipherable tree-branch logo added to the mystery and power of Marras and made it stand out like a mighty, crooked crag among an enjoyable but somewhat indistinct discography.

Hence the apprehension. Gone is the twisted tree logo, in its place something more generic, inverted cross dead-center. Gone is the obscure artwork, replaced with something you might expect on the cover of Continental Black Metal album #666,666. One track being the exception, gone are the exaggerating running times, everything here clocking from four to seven minutes apart from the 14-minute closer. Essentially everything about this released had me worried that the Korgonthurus I had known and loved was not going to be found here. Nobody likes to see their heroes fall and all that.

So yes, this is different from the last album. I mean, it has to be, just by virtue of the track lengths. There's not a lot of room for rumination on themes, at least not like they used to. However, despite all of the new baphomets and upside-down crosses imagery, there's still quite a bit of atmosphere to be found on this album. I'm getting subtle hints of perhaps Blood Red Fog, mainly through the use of waltz-time and the sort of swirling, queasy arpeggios BRF is so fond of. But while that band is all echoing chants and haunted forest despair, Korgonthurus here take a more muscular route. While Corvus is, more often than not, rending flesh from bone with his relentlessly abrasive shrieks, he also gets a lot of use out of his lower register growls, bolstering the more Behexen-ish route the band has taken this time around.

Musically, though, the minimalism of Marras is pretty far gone. The band's three-guitar approach actually works exceedingly well, often with multiple layers of riffing going on simultaneously. There's a ghostly, distant lead guitar weaving mournful tremolo through and between the rhythm guitars, carefully threading the needle whether the surroundings are going more for the wistful (the bridge of the title track) or the unhinged (the closing bits of "I.K.P.N."). While I wouldn't exactly call the production crystal clear as there's still a thick coat of grime and the intense distortion on the guitars adds tons of noise to the overall mix, there's absolutely a feeling of "bigger budget" compared to the last album. The combined effect of the triple guitars and the complementary production is that the band actually puts the effort into writing compositions that take full advantage of this arrangement. Melodic motifs evolve while riffs march on, linking passages while the rhythm guitars shift into beat-down mode or the drums slow from blistering blasts to heavy-handed pounding. Yeah, of course we've got Corvus' passionate wailing to narrate our way through these winding tracks, but the way the guitars play off of each other is just as vital to the compositional strength of this album. It actually kind of reminds me of the layered elements that have helped recent Cosmic Church material explore such a dense, inspired corner of Finnish black metal.

It's an effect that ingratiates itself to listener the deeper into Vuohen siunaus one delves. Around the same time these subtleties really start to not only stand out but prove themselves vital, the band takes a gentle turn away from the aggression and hatred of much of the front half of the album and makes a slow death-spiral back toward the shadowy desolation that I love so much about their past work. Fortified by the strength of its musculature and the densely-woven guitar fibers, the band pours on the sorrow heavy, lets that old reliable repetition back through the gates for added emotional heft. The result is the wailing ghost of Marras viewed through the lens of the seven years of Finnish black metal that has left its marks upon the scene since last Korgonthurus recorded a full length album. In the process it winds up being something like a greatest hits of Finnish black metal. You've got the Burzum-ish suicidal feel of the Korgonthurus of old or maybe Mortualia, the riff-heavy assault of Behexen or Sargeist, the dark melodicism of mid-period Horna and Baptism and the vague, more obscure sounds of bands like Blood Red Fog and Cosmic Church. While I can't help but wish that this album gripped me in the same profound way the debut did, I'm thankful that by the end of it I can claim with no uncertain terms that the band still has it in them to reel me in. Furthermore, I'd probably put this album on a short list of releases I'd recommend newcomers to Finnish black metal to give a try, as it draws on a lot of cornerstones of the varied yet idiosyncratic Finnish sound to weave a dark, beautiful tapestry.

Now, if the whole thing sounded like the last two tracks, I'd have to swallow my pride and admit my apprehension was for naught...