Svartidaudi – The Synthesis of Whore and Beast EP
It’s always amazing to hear how far and wide the influence of a band who re-wrote the rules will spread. The band in which I speak of is Blut Aus Nord. The day I heard those utterly bleak and nightmarish riffs bending and contorting through the speakers, I knew it was a new way of playing and tormenting black metal’s tired formula and it would definitely catch on. Iceland’s Svartidaudi have indeed ripped a chapter or 2 out of the B.A.N. playbook for their 16 minute EP, The Synthesis of Whore and Beast.
Tormented riffs roil into oblivion upon tortured steeds. The bending, out of key and perplexing “harmonies” feel like fear or drug addled fever to these ears and it increases the appeal of Svartidaudi’s dense audial attack. I tend to prefer the more chaotic pulse of Venus Illegitima to the lumbering, horror doom scrape of Impotent Solar Phallus, for speed in Svartidaudi’s world pleasingly increases the misery, even though the tools they are employing to sculpt your psyche has been heard before on stunning albums like The Mystical Beast of Rebellion and The Work Which Transforms God. These 2 songs do come across as artistic, though it’s hard not to be listening to this slab and in the back of your mind wonder how long it has been since The Mystical Beast of Rebellion has been in your player and gee… I wish this release would hurry up and show me all it has to offer so I can finally go put on said B.A.N. album.
That being said, Svartidaudi are cultivating a strong statement with their music and the dark/churning delivery of it will appeal to those of you out there that find the polluted movement of death and black metal so exciting. I too find great artistic merit in this style, but due to the stubborn perversion of harmony on display, it makes it hard for something like this to fully enter rotation. Pure droning dissonance. Tribal/hypnotic/cavernous drumming. Reverb drenched/mid-ranged screams. The dark lord torments his legions. -Marty
Daemon Worship Productions
Worm Gear 