Flame of War – Transcendence
This CD turned out to be a nice surprise. The Polish duo Flame of War, take their NSBM values and inject them into one of the more moving and depressive, old styled black metal releases I’ve heard in quite some time. They do it all by clinging to all the staples of the genre, but not succumbing to boring structures, or crappy lo-fi trappings often used by the legions of bedroom BM warriors. Flame of War can play their instruments and even though the stick to the more simplistic side of riff writing, clean guitar lines and some lead work rip into dissonant chords and more distinct riffage that paints a very dreary landscape where dismay is the scourge upon the land. “Transcendence” is made up of 3 very long tracks, “Transcendence” 14:46, “Unity” 15:38, and “Fate” 26:49, all of which possess very memorable riffs and very sensible structures that never fall into moments of boredom. And to make this even more impressive, the drums are all programmed and mixed in with sequenced atmospherics (minor synth work), but the programming is so well done, the mechanical feel that COULD have corrupted this material, isn’t there at all. Everything sounds very natural and surging with a warm atmosphere that really emits a strong emotion (“sorrow” would be said emotion) rarely found at this level conviction. When the vocals come in, the sinister, almost demonic singing style is bloated by reverb and hits the listener like a chilling breeze on the face. The delivery isn’t so pronounced that it steps on the music at all, rather creeps out of the sonic fog like a specter moaning just inside the canvas of the forest. Sure Flame of War are obviously influenced by Burzum and other noteworthy Norwegian black metal masters, but they take the classic aesthetic and add enough of their own style and excellent songwriting skills to make “Transcendence” something truly powerful to behold and get lost in. –Marty
Eastside
Worm Gear 