One look at the Nordic tree line and shroud of violet light on the cover of this new, secretive black metal project and you’d be forgiven for expecting something slow, dark, ambient, pastoral…. What we get is something altogether more sinister. Thirty seconds in, and you’re disabused of any preconceptions you might have with a jarring clash of dissonant guitar and dungeon synth that has more than the usual meat on those dank bones. Have faith, press on further into the cacophony, and the braying riffs and pulsing kettle drum gradually give way to more cadent and melodic riffs that suddenly fall away to a chunky, indelible keyboard sound that’s more like a fiery funeral march than a twiddly amble through a frosty wood or a cobwebby medieval castle.

Hints that this Swedish project features members of Setherial, Stilla, Svederna and Bergraven should perhaps indicate that Escumergamënt means business: reworking some undoubtedly black metal themes into something convincingly thought provoking and different; something that takes us off the well-worn path while encasing the whole project in an evil intent that is perhaps even more malevolent than ninety per cent of the black metal you’ll hear in what is shaping up to be a very productive year. Five years after the band began to take form, the final recording was done over three days on analogue tapes, ‘live’, in an old wooden chapel. Not that you’d know – the production sounds thick and crisp, deeply layered and incredibly well constructed. The album’s title, in the ancient dialect of Occitan, forms of which are still spoken in pockets of Southern France, Spain and Italy and closely linked to the Catalan dialect, but rapidly on its way out (and, my cursory research can exclusively reveal, none of those modern-day languages provides an adequate translation of the words – said to be a passage from the Bible). It adds to the mystery of the album which has some dark gifts waiting around every corner.

The album’s story – the end of life, universe and everything (obvs) – begins with a yearning for ‘old night and winter’ in a blank canvas universe and ends with an ode to those ‘lingering souls left gazing into a universe devoid of all light and life’. Positive stuff, then…! Just what you need if you’re struggling with the extended winter lockdown! Then again, as ever with good black metal, the unfolding drama, cute use of non-metallic elements and those riffs that seep from the granite walls is anything but dispiriting. Keyboards blend in or take their own space, sometimes hefty medieval castle synths and other times with an almost 1970s gothic feel. The almost pleading, sorrowful mid-range pace sometimes slows to a darker, seething drama, while at other times the band lets fly into some pretty standard, good-old-fashioned second wave black metal, but always with that thicker, Swedish sound that frankly makes some of the stuff I’ve been listening to lately feel positively lightweight. That said, the typically Swedish black metal elements are not the thing that you’re going to take away from this album.

They do, however, provide a good bedrock for the more progressive elements as contained in the stand-out opening tracks, Of Old Night And Winter and To Envy The Corpses, the synth soaked Antediluvium and the mournful tick-tock of The Grievous Miracle. It’s all here coagulating in a pretty impressive pot of ideas that are meticulously threaded together into this debut. It all benefits from some nicely soulful leads, sinister repetition, some incredible shifts in tempo and timing and even a few authentic frenzied slips that I so miss when listening to today’s overproduced slabs of ‘perfection’ from parts of the metal sphere.

…Ni degu fazentz escumergament e mesorga.. is an album to immerse yourself in and to spend a bit of time with. I must admit I dropped this after the first listen thinking it was a bit of a mishmash married with an attempt at something new. A few more spins and I’m left thinking I’m actually nowhere near unearthing all this album’s hidden depths and that that it could easy make it near the top of my AOTY list if my instincts serve me well. There’s still a long way to go though and, like I said, 2021 is going to be busy for black metal.

(8/10 Reverend Darkstanley)

https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/ni-degu-fazentz-escumergam-nt-e-mesorga