Nature loving Black Metal from Germany for fans of Wolves in the Throne Room and Fen. Well I love nature (the satanic thing is tiresome after a while \m/ ) and I also like to give the aforementioned bands a spin every now and then so I reckon Arde from Berlin are right up my strasse . (I wish I could remember how to do those Teutonic B’s that are really S things on my keyboard – apologies).
Ancestral Cult is Arde’s second release following a self-titled L.P. in 2018 and is the result of the cursed covid lockdown. Whilst cooped up in their houses the quintet wrote and recorded the same number of tracks as a tribute to Mother Nature. The emphasis is really “mother” here, inspired by female goddesses throughout history – the four tracks of epic melodic post (ish) Black Metal are wrapped around the short “Sile” which is a short spiritual quasi Christian slice of gentle folk from Cinder Well a Californian folk singer who now resides in County Clare in Eire. It is a total change from the tracks that surround it but a perfect fit.
Those other four are tributes to the might and power of nature but also the beauty, elegance and gentleness bestowed upon the earth by science personified as a mother. I have taken the time to track down the lyrics on Bandcamp – the rasps of Kato are low in the mix and hard to decipher, offering as he does another musical element to his fellow musicians rather than a brash overlord with a microphone.
This band are fervently anti oppression in any form and have a DIY punk attitude – starting as they did as a D-Beat band. This approach comes across both in the lyrics and indeed in the production with a “no you go at the front approach” which could cause a muddying but rather here entangles each instrument within the other much like fauna entwines roots amongst other species.
Opener, The Birth Portal is a giant swathe of post black metal. Guitars cascade like violins and the blastbeats pummel the heart whilst the words tell the tale of the big bang – at least I think so. “The uterus that created everything was born as an interdimensional door” . The track slows to a lilting but pulsating mix of blackgaze and early black metal evil claw moments which mixes the new wave with the old school. Nice.
The Halls of Ostara is more of the same – a steady rock beat accompanies a razor sharp guitar line and The Birch opens with a fist pumping pomp before accelerating into beautiful grimness that has mean waving my arms up and down like a corpse painted Andre Previn.
Final track Vesica Piscis begins with an echoing guitar that smacks of “A Reflection” from the Cure’s magnificent “Seventeen Seconds”. (Bizarrely covered by Exhumed trivia fans) and then heads off to the post/ blackgaze races with swathes of Hulder and Ghost Bath vibes. This song is full of gothic melancholy so was always gonna be a winner with this miserable yet grinning bastard.
The music that Arde create is vast and sweeping like the nature that they are inspired by. The danger is that it may get lost in the foliage of the current zeitgeist of similar artists. However, this dark bloom is well worth digging up and taking home.
(7.5/10 Matt Mason)
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