Blodsrit - The Well of Light Has Finally Dried (2006)

One of the striking things about Blodsrit, and in particular this album, is that they eschew the warmer tones typical of the bigger Swedish black metal bands in lieu of a frost-tainted Norse style. They lack for none of the melodies of their countrymen, however, and The Well of Light Has Finally Dried is a majestic and nihilistic credit to its title. Cold and dreary, charging riffs accent their creepier, slower passages, think of sitting in the middle of a northern European woodland on a winter afternoon. Consider some of the members performed in death metal bands prior to this, it's an effectively grim offering, their fourth full-length.

"Illumnious Tu" spaces in with subtle guitar feedback ambience, polymorphing into a very cold but beautiful riff of evocative atmospheres. Naahz' extremely grim snarls create a dense wall of despair, and the song gives plenty of space to its mid-paced blasting charge riffs. "Into Nothingness" opens with a cold and flowing stream of speed plucking lavished in horrifically gorgeous chords. "Vid Grimnas Stränder" is one of my favorite tracks here, begins with a steady and subtle bass groove before the towering chords crash across, like waves of blackened blood over a marble bleak shore. "En Enslig Klagan" is a beautiful interlude with some hymnal and conversational samples beneath a steady clock ticking, fulfilling folk acoustics and some other sparse effects. This is offset by "Jord", one of the faster tracks here, but interspersing its blasting blasphemy with some interesting pauses between beats, and a Bathory-like mid paced verse. "Dödsraseri - den segervissa modern" is a somber and twisting. depressive track which closes the album slowly.

The Well of Light Has Finally Dried! It's a pretty brief album, clocking in at just under a half hour in length, but do black metal albums need to be much longer? Not to be effective. And this is effective. Grim and oft simplistic, it's tonal structures should be pleasing (or displeasing) to the fans of suicidal black metal. But the album also betrays a depth few of your average bedroom black metal acts can fathom, a sadness and glory and an awareness of the margins of the modern world. Many consider their previous effort Helveteshymner to be their strongest work. This album is slightly shorter, but I would consider it equally potent. Nice cover art, too, which of course immediately recalled Massive Attack's Mezzanine.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://www.blodsrit.se/