BLUT AUS NORD – ethereal horizons – CD digipack

The wonderful 16th album from legendary Avant Black Metal paragons BLUT AUS NORD is the culmination of a 30-year vision – as mainman Vindsval connects each element of the band’s history to launch yet another intrepid exploratory evolution.
« Ethereal Horizons » is BLUT AUS NORD fully realised: richer, deeper, grander, more enigmatic and simultaneously more human than ever. Intermeshing the earthen and the futuristic as a vessel for the dark dreamer, soaring and ascending to vivid realms.
After spending the preceding few years immersed in the wyrd and uneasy world of Lovecraft, this guitars-forward and melodious new album feels more akin to the organic, intoxicating terrain of 2014’s « Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry » or 2019’s « Hallucinogen » – a cosmic and consonant antidote to our incessant psychic battering from the bleak, cacophonous biosphere in which we reside.
« Ethereal Horizons » incorporates otherworldliness from all eras of BAN – traces of churning dissonance, subtle industrialised elements, the weeping of celestial leads, V’s spectral & subliminal snarl – but brings in a suite of new and more grounded feels too. Far-reaching melodic themes turn inward and outward, frequently resolving into the swing of classic, prog and post rock. The warmth of swirling psych-organ and expanses of kosmische synth provide a bed for emotive themes to build and release into full-throttle ruthlessness. Vocal stylings are wide-ranging as ever, utilising the distinctive cloudbusting cleans and choirs, but this time with a lazer-focus on wistful transcendent melodies, refrains and even out-and-out hooks.