Blut Aus Nord – 777 Sect(s)

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The prevailing movement in today’s French black metal scene – or at least the one that isn’t defined so easily as “bands that Neige is in” – is predicated largely on sonic and aesthetic weirdness. The two leading lights of this bizarre scene are Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord, both of whom produce records on a regular basis that are consistently challenging and often even disturbing. The latest from the latter band, 777 Sect(s), is the first in what will be a trilogy of 777 albums, the other two of which are expected to be released this fall. …Sect(s) is certainly weird, but unfortunately it rarely offers much else. Whereas earlier works like the band’s genre-defining The Work Which Transforms God were both jarring and interesting, forcing the listener to think about what was being presented and revealing its beauty only when they did, …Sect(s) stops well shy of the beauty and seems contented to be merely strange. The album works awfully hard at setting up the trilogy and is undeniably satisfied with its own high concept (all six songs are entitled Epitome with the corresponding Roman numeral for the track, as one pretentious example) but beyond all that there’s not quite enough meat on the record’s bones. With odd time signatures and chromatic riffs abound in every song, along with the requisite breaks for synthesizer-produced atmosphere, the album often falls into what no album like this ever should: redundancy. This sameness makes it difficult to pull out a true highlight, though Epitome II comes close with its sense of immediacy, a quality most of the album is sorely lacking. Perhaps …Sect(s) is a deliberately slow start for the 777 trilogy and The Desanctification and Cosmosophy will be better, but with only this release to judge Blut Aus Nord’s 2011 output on thus far, it has to be considered something of a disappointing year for them.

Written by Brad Sanders
More: 2011, Albums, Black Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Blut Aus Nord