black metal
There's a lot of angry women going round lately. No, I'm not talking about pink-haired feminists, but rather the Satan-worshiping, toad-licking witch variety. If you like your metal proggy, you might want to check out Karyn Crisis’ Gospel of the Witches, a very good occvlt rock album, that will be released next month.
For this review, however, I picked out Vesperith's eponymous debut album, due to be released on November 22nd. Vesperith is the nom-de-plume of Sariina Tani, a Finnish singer with a very good voice - she is able to sound both angelic and demonic within the space of one song.
On this record she is assisted by Jun-His, who you may know as mastermind of Oranssi Pazuzu, Finnish dealers of psychedelic black metal.
According to Tani, this record "was a traverse to the darker inner regions of the soul and through that alchemical trial of fire becoming whole again". That might make sense, as they are trying really hard to make this record a transcendental experience. In any case, it needs time to grow on you, because it took me several spins to really start to appreciate it.
There's a lot of dark ambient in here, spiced up with remote, over-compressed blastbeats. Tani's voice is everywhere, either wailing like a siren in heat, or growling like a wounded jaguar. For me, the highlight of the album is Valohämärä, which combines frail pianos, industrial drones, and Tani's voice going from elfish to ogrish. I especially dig the jazzy drum part, which wouldn't be out of place on a Spektr album. There seems to be a lot of buzz around this band lately, and Tani is
planning on taking this to the stage next year. I hope they do not skip Belgium.
Koen
For this review, however, I picked out Vesperith's eponymous debut album, due to be released on November 22nd. Vesperith is the nom-de-plume of Sariina Tani, a Finnish singer with a very good voice - she is able to sound both angelic and demonic within the space of one song.
On this record she is assisted by Jun-His, who you may know as mastermind of Oranssi Pazuzu, Finnish dealers of psychedelic black metal.
According to Tani, this record "was a traverse to the darker inner regions of the soul and through that alchemical trial of fire becoming whole again". That might make sense, as they are trying really hard to make this record a transcendental experience. In any case, it needs time to grow on you, because it took me several spins to really start to appreciate it.
There's a lot of dark ambient in here, spiced up with remote, over-compressed blastbeats. Tani's voice is everywhere, either wailing like a siren in heat, or growling like a wounded jaguar. For me, the highlight of the album is Valohämärä, which combines frail pianos, industrial drones, and Tani's voice going from elfish to ogrish. I especially dig the jazzy drum part, which wouldn't be out of place on a Spektr album. There seems to be a lot of buzz around this band lately, and Tani is
planning on taking this to the stage next year. I hope they do not skip Belgium.
Koen
