You better read this fast, since I haven’t checked with our IT department if it’s even safe to post any content of this particular band on Veil of Sound! So just in case this isn’t just my last album review of the year here, but our whole server burns down in a Dissonant Blackened Death Metal firestorm: Thank you for your interest and support as long as the fun lasted!
Veilburner are a band from the special “Pestilent Niche” of Extreme Metal which could be categorized as one dude with a generic alias, way too much time and chronical unwillingness to throw away any idea writes all the music, yet in this case he has at least the social skills to work together with one other member whose tasks are lyrics and vocals.
With this in mind - and since this album’s basic mood is foul and lunatic, expressed mostly in Black/Death Metal that’s wide open for outside influences and experiments -, it’s easy to guess that Longing for Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy is a twig rotting on the Blut Aus Nord branch of the Metal tree. And that’s definitely a band name that couldn’t possibly be omitted if we started our reviews here with a For fans of list.
Even though it has the spooky keyboards and super clean drum production coming with the typical Blut Aus Nord aesthetics, Veilburner’s sound easily emancipates itself from that reference. During the first shockwave of unbound hellish lunacy radiated by this album it’s easy to miss that most of the music is actually firmly rooted in the good old Metal tradition of building upon strong guitar work. Mephisto Deleterio really has a gift for creating exciting, original and also quiet catchy riffs. Those not only include the Black Metal fury, delightful disharmonies and Gorguts-style Technical Death Metal you probably expect by now, but also some killer Thrash Metal bangers I could easily imagine in tracks from Protector or when more Progressive even Coroner.
And is it a new trend to end Avant Metal albums with obvious homages? Because where Imperial Triumphant closed their recent masterpiece Goldstar with basically their own twisted version of The Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, I cannot help but hear the finale of “…Reeking With Tragedy” as a subtle but purposeful tribute to The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil”. Please tell me this isn’t just me! It surely would resonate with the album’s lyrical examination of human nature being bound to anguish and evil, the central question being “Do you exist to suffer? Or do you suffer to exist?”
But back to the music: In comparison to a project like Esoctrilihum, where a huge part of the mission is to completely overwhelm the listener with the sheer scale and abundance of just everything, Veilburner actually economise. There aren’t that many more riffs than needed – and the greatest ones are allowed to stay a while and carry big chunks of the songs. Obviously there’s still a lot of stuff happening, but for a group in this corner of Extreme Metal Veilburner’s instrumental side actually is rather straight-forward and comprehensible.
What really conveys the sense of spiraling through an abyssal maelstrom of madness is the bonkers vocal performance of Chrisum Infernium, who doesn’t content himself with being the growler who blends into the Death Metal environment like just another instrumental texture. Instead he takes the spotlight with a dramatic, eccentric and expressive range of squealing, screeching, screaming, howling and gargling. Even though it’s boring to be the Deathcore hater here, we all know the truth that no matter how outstanding your singer’s technique is, over-the-top extreme vocal performances can often just feel like a self-serving hollow gimmick with zero actual impact. But if a vocalist knows how to integrate unique Black and Death Metal flavours with personality in an effective meaningful way – like the prime example Jun-His of Oranssi Pazuzu – you get excellent self-consistent sick shit like Veilburner.
As the icing on the cake the cover artwork by Luciana Nedelea perfectly captures the spirit of Longing For Triumph, Reeking of Tragedy and rounds up a pretty perfect work. So if you were able to read all this without your screen suddenly bursting into flames, I guess there’s really nothing to dislike about this splendid album.
