Liste des groupes Black Metal Fenrisulf Fenrisulf

My first brush with Fenrisulf came in the form of the 5 way split, Oriental Abyss which I reviewed a couple of months back. The abilities and potentials of the individual bands featured on the split surprised me, in particular Fenrisulf because of their bleak take on black metal. The self-titled Fenrisulf is the band's first demo, and to be honest, this is one record to cause unprepared listeners to shit their pants.

Fenrisulf opens with the hesitant riffs of From Past, but it does not take long for the band to get the ball rolling as the trebly riffs and the chaotic drumming accompanies the piercing shrieks and howls of vocalist Syuri to push the boundaries of sanity within the listener. All semblance of sense and normality here is gone as Syuri howls his way through, at times leaning towards the traditional black metal shrieking style of vocals, yet more often than not resorting to those inhuman shrieks, instantly teleporting listeners to a torture chamber, witnessing the gruesome treatment towards another human being and watching him scream in agony, yet too helpless to do anything. The piercing screams and howls certainly send a chill down the spine as one wonder what really goes on behind the scenes when the demo was recorded. To some, this could be the worst kind of vocals they ever listened to, but to each his own.

However, the rest of the instrumentations retain their traditional black metal edge, with perhaps even an Eastern flavour in the riffs with the melody unleashed by guitarist Yyy. The buzzing and trebly guitar tone that Yyy utilises on his guitar is instantly recognisable to listeners familiar with their raw black metal. With such vocals there damned well be a depressive style of black metal riffing to match, and this is precisely what makes Fenrisulf such a unique experience, with the band somehow managing to fuse the elements of chaos (in the form of the desolate shrieks of Syuri and the drumming of Ram) and beauty together in such a manner.

Songs such as Sorrowful Groan, for example, provides an ironic sense of beauty with the sad and emotional chord progression, only put to extreme levels of distortion so it would take certain amount of concentration to hear that out and one can imagine how ballad-y this would sound without all the distortion and chaos around. Imagine the same riffs, played with acoustic guitars, like Satanic Warmaster's acoustic rendition of The Burning Eyes of the Werewolf, oh the beauty! Also, on Kangerou the bass of Takashi adds an ominous feel to the music with the seemingly out-of-tune lines that are played, bound to raise hair when listened to in the middle of the night as it sounds almost as if someone were humming to the music in an extremely low pitch. It is a pity though, that this is one of the very few moments that the bass rears its ugly head. The inclusion of more of such bass lines would definitely mess with the listener's head further. The acoustic outro leaves a haunting and fitting end to the demo. The production quality of the demo further enhances the experience, sufficiently raw and sounding as if an experienced band had recorded this together in a jamming studio.

With such music, there is no need for lyrics to tell the listeners what all the fuss is about as Syuri's tortured vocals more than sufficiently displays. Now, strap yourself to a chair, press the play button, turn up the volume of the speakers and try not to kill yourself.