Unimaginable horrors and cosmic terrors are things that likely would wipe most of our brains and leave us drooling messes on the floor with our ability to do anything productive completely devastated. Can you imagine seeing something so frightening that your brain could not even conceive of such a thing, and here you are staring it in the eyes? If it has eyes.
We’ve written a ton about Blut Aus Nord during this site’s existence, and every time they arrive with a new record, we face something we never knew was possible. The band’s 16th full-length album is upon us in the form of “Disharmonium – Nahab,” and even if you’re well versed in their musical universe, you’ll still find that you’re horrified and surprised. The band— guitarist/vocalist Vindsval, bassist GhÖst, drummer/keyboard player/electronics master W.D. Feld—started the “Disharmonium” path with last year’s amazing “Undreamable Abysses,” and then they came back super fast with “Lovecraftian Echoes.” BTW, totally acknowledge Lovecraft was a racist shitbag, but he did create some timeless horrors. At least he’s dead and is broke forever. “Nahab” continues on a similar vein but feels like a different alien being that originated from the same DNA, only mutated beyond control.
“Hideous Dream Opus #1” opens the record ominously, noise steaming and floating, hurtling through the cosmos into “Mental Paralysis” that is named for good reason since that’s how this feels. The track bursts through clouds and is immediately menacing, a beastly, warped phantom working through the night, the growls shrouded by fog. Guitars induce heat while dreams swarm, and then it’s on to “The Endless Multitude” that begins a little punchier. It also plays with your mental well-being, snaking through mental tributaries, smearing your subconscious with strange messages. The playing is disorienting as it builds its way up, threatening and boiling, swirling through pressure zones, eventually fading into a damaged corner of space. “Hideous Dream Opus #2” is another short instrumental that’s oddly calming and quivers in its place in the sky, making your head swing toward “The Crowning Horror” that immediately ruptures and bleeds profusely. The riffs lure you into their trap as deep growls mix into an overcast haze, the hissing feeling threatening. A monstrous burst sinks in its teeth as cloud cover thickens, and we head right into “Queen of the Dead Dimension” that’s slurry and feels like it’s staggering in the dark. Hissed growls and warm leads mix, the playing hanging over your head. As the track goes on, you can’t help but feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience before an explosion of sound brings you back, spinning through space and into your shaking psyche.
“The Black Vortex” instantly blends brains, a zany, dizzying assault that is impossible to get a hold of first time you hear it. If you’re ever able to gain any control over it. Growls lurch as the playing sweeps and then enters a state of total hypnosis, which you won’t see coming. The shots then jolt anew, the growls feel like electricity pushing through wires, and the track barrels out into numbness. “Nameless Rites” brings marring growls and a pace that batters your senses, glorious synth coming off like the horns of Armageddon. The playing pumps cosmic majesty, storming through the universe, sweeping out into the edge of time. “Hideous Dream Opus #3” is the final interlude, and it’s murky and milky, sweeping and then burning away. “The Ultimate Void of Chaos” is savage as hell as it begins to recklessly divebomb, the growls sizzling as the rubbery base squeezes marrow from bones. Mystical powers make the waters crystal clear but also poisonous, your head suddenly is spinning out of control, and then the thing pulls back and retches filth, burrowing out into time. Closer “Forgotten Aeon” storms and contorts, mesmerizes and engorges, acting like a phantom out of control. The playing is storming and disarming, bleeding chaos that sheds mechanical cells, a sound assault that brews in a galactic cauldron that spills all over time and changes the makeup of the earth.
There’s no such thing as a normal Blut Aus Nord record, nor is there one that’s easily digestible and simple to approach. Which is what makes this band so memorable in the first place. “Disharmonium – Nahab” is the ideal companion to their Lovecraft-inspired work, the portrait of an unspeakable beast stretching its tentacles and pulling to its greedy mouth anything in its path. Blut Aus Nord remain prolific and untouchable, a band that’s as much an alien species as anything, always changing and shifting to keep things interesting and full of abject terror.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/Vindsval.official
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://debemurmorti.aisamerch.com/
Or here (Europe): https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/12-eshop
For more on the label, go here: https://www.debemur-morti.com/en/
Meat Mead Metal 