When reviewing Dayal Patterson’s The Cult Never Dies Volume 1 recently I commented about the fact that there were quite a few of the original Polish black metal bands that I had not really heard. This band Furia although only having been around since 2003 have quite a pedigree amongst their line up with members from the likes of Massemord, Morowe, Thaw and the eclectically named Seagulls Insane and Swans Deceased Mining Out the Void in their ranks, so I was quite pleased to have encountered a lot of the groups that they stemmed from. Still this did not set me up in the slightest for what I was going to hear on this the band’s fourth full length album and to say the music on it was a complete dervish of sound is an understatement. Nocel was actually released last year but found its way to me on cdr due to the fact that Pagan Records are now bringing it out on double gatefold vinyl. I took one look at the industrialised cover and can imagine how that will look in all its glory. The tracks titles are all in Polish and on translation have odd titles such as ‘Birds Go’, ‘We Order Something’ and ‘A Huge Night’ so this was an intriguing proposition all round.
The hour long CD is full of burgeoning and powerful riffs that flow and entwine around everything else, hardly ever ceasing throughout and being absolutely full of dextrous melody. To even call this black metal at first is a bit of a misnomer as it strikes as being quite joyous and upbeat with all the band members feeding off each other as they flawlessly jam away. Nihil’s vocals when they enter the fray have a gruff barbarian bark about them and add to the stomp of the overall sound. I guess there’s a bit of a pagan feel about it all but then again even though the themes are not something I can particularly translate there is also a very modern feel too as it bristles away. A hefty death grunt helps drive things along and if I had to try and say who this reminds me of bands such as Kampfar mixed with the fast riffing attack of Taake would be my starting point. Furia certainly strike as rather unique though and throw some odd sounds and nuances as well as the occasional downbeat depressive part into their musical craft. It’s certainly never boring and hardly stands still for a second either, the hour long album is easy to lose yourself in and it has demanded plenty of attention and drawn me back for repeated spins.
Some of the tracks such as ‘Zamawianie drugie’ are very much to the point and fast and furious, absolutely storming away in a fist-slamming show of complete and utter bravado. This one leaves you pretty breathless and listening to it is an almost jaw dropping display that leaves you in no doubt that these guys really can play. Not that they slow down much with the near psychedelic vortex intensity of the songs longest number Niezwykła nieludzka nieprzyzwoitość (which seems to translate to a perfect ‘Unusual Inhuman Indecency.’) This rages along and the riffs are massive flurrying deluges, bass underpinning it all and drums battering away. It’s intense in the extreme until it suddenly downs tools taking up a quirky sort of depressive edge with spoken words that is somewhat reminiscent of the likes of Lifelover and Vanhelga. As the album continues everything about it strikes as absolutely massive from production to the thick powerful and never ending hefty grooves and rapid ‘furious’ riffs. It does feel like the album kind of drags you through a hedge backwards but having come through it all with battle scars, scrapes and cuts standing out the only thing you really want to do here is throw yourself back in all over again. This one pretty much came out of nowhere and although I knew it was going to take a fair bit of hard work and intense listening to be ready to review it, Nocia ended up with me on the very first listen. It’s continued to pretty much blow me away continuously since and is well worth tracking down.
(8.5/10 Pete Woods)
https://paganrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nocel
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