VED BUENS ENDEWritten In Waters(Candlelight)cd$ 14.98
Praise Odin! At long last, a reissue of the sole full-length Ved Buens Ende album, originally released in 1995 on the now defunct cult label Misanthropy. A black metal super session of sorts, this band featured past, present, and future members of Satyricon, Dodheimsgard, Aura Noir, Cadaver Inc. and Arcturus. But Ved Buens Ende ('At The End of the Rainbow' in English) hardly sounded like ANY of those black metal stalwarts -- as avant garde as any of them ever got, Ved Buens Ende went way beyond. Yes it was heavy and dark and the vocals had a unique Viking/monk chant strangeness that isn't typical of black metal but would make even less sense coming from another genre of music... but rather than black metal, Ved Buens Ende could just as easily be categorized as a post-rock or math-rock band. A really amazing math-rock band, with Don Caballero's "2" being the closest comparison! But totally sad and metallic and strange and forlorn and beautiful. Utter weird progressive instrumental genius. And the vocals, once you get used to them (and they do add to the bizarre vibe already created by the unsettling, atmospheric music) are used to deliver some mysterious, poetic lyrics as well. Overall, this is not like anything else! It's too bad they never released another record (except for a disc of demos) but it's also unlikely that they could have surpassed this masterpiece anyway. Over the past eight years, this record has really proven itself to be a lasting classic, growing in stature, foreshadowing (but still exceeding) much of the 'post-black metal' innovations to come -- such as the most out-there psychedelic parts of recent Enslaved albums, for instance, or Opeth's epic dynamism. It's been out of print for a long time, and hopefully now will reach a whole new audience with this remixed, remastered re-release, which features brand new cover art/graphic design that's not bad at all, kind of a fancier, Ralph Steadman ink-splatter take on the original artwork. As one of our favorite so-called black metal albums EVER, this gets the highest recommendation, though the vocal style may be a test that hopefully you will pass. MPEG Download: "I Sang For The Swans" [/audio/vedbuensendeIsang.mp3] MPEG Stream: "I Sang For The Swans" [/audio/vedbuensendeIsang.m3u]
- MPEG stream: I Sang For The Swans
- MPEG stream: Remembrance Of Things Past