black metal / death metal
The blind leading the blind is an album released on November 11, by independent Ukrainian record label Archaic Sound. Work of a musical project conceived under the alias 1914, this is blackened death metal on its most inventive, pressurized and obscure prominence. With sinister atmospheres, but abrasive guitar lines adorned by imperatively rapid harmonies, The blind leading the blind reunites in graceful cohesion all the fundamental elements of the genre: dense melodies, a guttural voice, pungent but dilacerating musical arrangements, and dubious melancholic sensitivities, that falls between the exhilarating devices of narrow ambiguity and glorious objectivity. Beyond the summary astute easiness of its aggressive downfall, this album satisfies coherently the mostly general qualities of the genre, while being too obvious and generic – almost predictable – by a more oblique perspective. Nevertheless, The blind leading the blind manages to be, more or less, an intense, intelligent and pervasive album, with some satisfactory songs that makes this work worthwhile listening it.
With eleven tracks – War In, Arrival. The Meuse-Argonne, A7V Mephisto, High Wood. 75 Acres of Hell, Beat The Bastards (The Exploited cover), Hanging On The Barbed Wire, Passchenhell, C'est Mon Dernier Pigeon, Stoßtrupp, The Hundred Days Offensive and War Out – this almost one hour long album is a profound, lucid, pertinent and belligerent anthem in preparation for war. With versatile elements that dispatch vividly its musical strength, The blind leading the blind is mostly characterized by powerfully exhilarating and brutal harmonies, that never dares to be condescending with its own ferocious and implacable plausibility.
While there’s nothing on this album that could be regarded as deeply surprising or original, 1914 knows how to elaborate and to execute a solid, proficient, somber and cohesive musical work. With a salutary vividness that embraces its own virulent propensities and archaic glorious dimensions, the sonorous densities of the musical layers are characteristically well elaborated, and respect the boundaries of its own passionate, but effusively dark cosmogonies, that always explode in a tempestuous rebellion of nefarious harmonies.
Like I’ve pointed out some lines above, The blind leading the blind definitely is not a marvelous album, but manages to be modestly good and interesting, all the way through. Its sophisticated enough to captivate an audience, solidify a cohesive sound and redefine intelligently the more discreet elements of its own style, while maintaining intact its general musical premises, and reevaluating this particular genre as a more extreme form of expression.
Wagner
With eleven tracks – War In, Arrival. The Meuse-Argonne, A7V Mephisto, High Wood. 75 Acres of Hell, Beat The Bastards (The Exploited cover), Hanging On The Barbed Wire, Passchenhell, C'est Mon Dernier Pigeon, Stoßtrupp, The Hundred Days Offensive and War Out – this almost one hour long album is a profound, lucid, pertinent and belligerent anthem in preparation for war. With versatile elements that dispatch vividly its musical strength, The blind leading the blind is mostly characterized by powerfully exhilarating and brutal harmonies, that never dares to be condescending with its own ferocious and implacable plausibility.
While there’s nothing on this album that could be regarded as deeply surprising or original, 1914 knows how to elaborate and to execute a solid, proficient, somber and cohesive musical work. With a salutary vividness that embraces its own virulent propensities and archaic glorious dimensions, the sonorous densities of the musical layers are characteristically well elaborated, and respect the boundaries of its own passionate, but effusively dark cosmogonies, that always explode in a tempestuous rebellion of nefarious harmonies.
Like I’ve pointed out some lines above, The blind leading the blind definitely is not a marvelous album, but manages to be modestly good and interesting, all the way through. Its sophisticated enough to captivate an audience, solidify a cohesive sound and redefine intelligently the more discreet elements of its own style, while maintaining intact its general musical premises, and reevaluating this particular genre as a more extreme form of expression.
Wagner
