OK for once let’s cut to the chase and go backwards. I had real problems with this album. Try as I might and with play after play I failed utterly to make any headway to get to the inside of the album, so what follows is with that in mind. Apologies in advance.

The above is doubly disappointing as this is a project from Blut Aus Nord mastermind Vindsval and long-time collaborator W.D. Feld. With these two superlative creators you may not always know what to expect but you can rely on the fact that it will have a keen creative intelligence behind it and it will be their vision. Here though with Yeruselem that in the end means little to me when I simply cannot find a way in.

Opening with the title track after a little noise we get a synth and guitar and distant vocal amalgam which immediately brought Mythological Cold Towers to mind. No bad thing as I have a real soft spot for them and often simply relax into their flow. This is short, though, about four minutes, and we then pass into ‘Autoimmunity’ which has a BAN feel to the guitar but with the rhythm it twists towards a much less intense Godflesh. A darkwave blanket of cold sound creeps around this but somehow it seems to turn in a tight circle, going not very far. ‘Eternal’ follows with the same rhythmic approach and feel and, by this point begins to sound very little different to me.

‘Sound Over Matter’ provides a smooth interlude of a couple of minutes before ‘Joyless’ continues the same path as before. ‘Triiunity’, ‘Babel’ and ‘Reverso’ follow until by the time the epilogue of ‘Textures Of Silence’ follow I feel like the kneeling figure on the cover about to be crushed by the giant, misshapen horse. Beaten down by something I plainly just do not understand.

This is a well produced sound, by superb artists and yet when even something like BAN’s Mort can reach me, this…it simple does not speak to me at all. It takes me nowhere, it offers me nothing, it feels lacking in a nuance and texture that I might relate to and it touches no emotion in me which is actually rather upsetting. It leaves me feeling like I am to blame as part of my mind thinks that it is so close to sounds I love that I should simply get it.

But I don’t and I cannot lie.

I would hope every Blut Aus Nord fan would be independent enough to pay this a visit, but I have and now I have to make my own way home. Apologies.

(5/10 Gizmo)

https://facebook.com/Yeruselemprojekt

https://yeruselem.bandcamp.com/album/the-sublime