Rana make the sort of glorious racket that slaps you in the face with a velvet gloved hand then caresses you sensually after the blow has fallen.
The band ran the gamut of many subgenres of extreme music and take the best bits from each. The over-arching ambience comes from Black metal and there are plenty of tremolo picked guitar lines throughout to keep the most ardent orange squeezer happy. However, it is the flourishes of “post” metal, doom crust and almost proggy sludge that take the stark blackness and muddy it into a wonderfully gloopy cacophony. The band are Anti Fascist in their beliefs, so I am behind them before I hear a note and luckily they do not disappoint sonically either.
This album is made up of four tracks so I may as well cut this “Leading Fire“ (to translate from the German) into quarters and plunge into the flames .
Opener “Lautern” is an 11-minute blast of an intro to proceedings. The gentle opening leads down a progressively dark and dirty path with the rasped vocals of A E B taking the listener by the ear and leading us further into a doomy crusty destination – the likes of which Florida’s Worm have been known to wade. Then like the trash monster in A New Hope something erupts and all fucking hell breaks loose. Blastbeats, mad Black Metal riffs and wonderful, beautiful chaos bursts forth. This itself is sliced in half into gigantic crusty sludge chunks filled with gnarled riff roots and rancid dirty vocals before a clean guitar line breaks through like sunlight through the trees and an ethereal calm beauty emerges. As the drum beat builds it is obvious that something is on its way and that new beast is a glorious post black riff that would give Alcest a run for their money. From here on the track swaps seamlessly between the styles creating a pretty damn fine patchwork of extremity.
Flamura that follows is practically a grindcore length track in comparison at 5 minutes.
It opens with a groovy almost happy riff with gothic undertones and the sweeping nuance of Gothenburg via West Yorkshire if you know worra mean. There is something quintessentially Doom/Death happening here but with a shot of adrenaline in the arm of each musician. This track is a banger. It makes me want to dance and I find myself roaring out wrong lyrics coz I want to feel part of it – I am only on my third listen so I need to do my homework on the chorus. Getting serious Amebix vibes from this one as well as evil sounding darkness. The hope shines out and makes the track all the more bitter sweet as the emotion builds through the swirling guitars.
Throughout the album the band all get chance to show off their musical prowess. B and J (giggedy) on guitars have got a lot of props already as has the keeper of the pipes. E B on drums manages to sound laid back and in the pocket whilst never letting anyone else in the band shift from their job ably aided by the throb of A. (the fullstop appears on his Encyclopedia Metallum profile so I shall put it in here.)
The title track looms in with a hint of Woods of Ypres to both the melody and the vocals. Melancholy drips from the track for the first couple of minutes with A E B using a lilting, clean vocals, reminiscent of David Gold, to great effect. Then like early WoY the band descend into a flurry of furious yet soaringly beautiful Black Metal. The drum beats flit between blast and staccato punky rhythms whilst the strings give chase.
The closing chapter is a near 18-minute epic in two parts. Our Smouldering Grief/Im Brand.
Military drums usher in melodic doom death with harsh but melodic vocals and a guitar line that has the incense perfume of My Dying Bride about it. Our Smouldering Grief is apt – this part of the track laps in and out like the dying flames and some on ashen bones (yeah, this music has got me at it now). Just as it appears the fire is extinguished the pace picks up and more heartbreaking, soaring sorrowful BM guitar lines rise from the ash with that punky drum beat again.
Then the drums sloooooow and the razor sharp guitars become mournful and the doom/death is strong again. The mixture of styles ebbs and flows effortlessly and take my ears and befuddled mind on a journey that suggests hope amongst utter despair. If the first section was smouldering and brooding the second half – Im Brand (in the fire) is angry and vengeful sounding. Mid-paced but A E B is rasping his voice ragged as the musicians around him throw out spiky and lacerating riffs and paradiddles to flay those that have wronged them. I need a lyric sheet (and probably a German A level). The end certainly justifies the means of this album – a flurry of dark wings and d-beat ushers in the finale and with it the need to hit play again.
Submersive and succulent
(8.5/10 Matt Mason)
09/06/2023 at 9:23 am
Richtfeuer (as per Bandcamp link)
09/06/2023 at 6:07 pm
Nearly! It’s Richtfeuer.