GRIFTESKYMFNING - Svart Materia LP BLUE MARBLE

Clocking in at just shy of the three-quarters-of-an-hour mark, Svart Materia comprises six cuts of ancient, arcane Black Metal with a decidedly cold and Northern feel, a freezing, distant atmosphere embracing the listener, the skilled use of melody and acccessibility-facilitating ambience bringing a distinctly icy dimension to proceedings – appropriate in this permawinter of 2020, where it feels like summer will never materialise due to the newly-revealed devastating power of nature and the grip it has exerted on the self-conscious, deluded mounds of organic matter that circulate on two limbs, convinced of their own importance and central role in a greater scheme of things that of course doesn’t exist.

Like the vast majority of Ancient Records related releases, this record is charged with emotion and energy. It’s majestic and loaded with lamentation (and have I mentioned the overwhelming melody?), but the lo-fi production and ghastly shrieks render Svart Materia is an evil and ghastly journey as well as an evocative and glorious one. With very obvious indebtedness to another time and place, when Black Metal was all about obscure darkness, this is essentially a very good atmospheric BM album with two feet planted firmly in the past and two bony fingers pointed up at progress.

Blue Marble Vinyl.
Housed in a gatefold cover sleeve, featuring lyrics and credits printed inside.