Review of Firefrost Arcanum by Vesania

Conclusion

A blackened-death metal bandwagon band that does a great job. Something of a Vader side-project with corpse paint, windmill head-banging and minor Roland keyboard abuse. It shall not make you guilty of metal hand sign abuse, nay nay.


'Marduke's Mazemerising', performed live.

Review

• According to Wikipedia, this Polish super group shares the awkward blackened-death metal genre with Vital Remains. Genres mean very little to me, so I'll take Wikipedia's word for it.


• Vesania has also been compared with Dimmu Borgir. Everyone from Nightwish to Opeth have been compared to Dimmu Borgir, so this comparison doesn't really mean much. If you like the live video of the band, chances are you would like this album. There are no big surprises, with the overall feel of the album being similar to Marduke's Mazemerising.


• To me, Vesania comes across as a barbaric Emperor. Emperor has orchestrations integral to their big sound. Vesania has more primal riffs with keyboard parts added in the background to accentuate certain parts. Another exception is that there are no clean vocal parts.


• Many metal bands proved themselves worthy when it comes to writing full scale orchestra productions, but few have the budget to realise this dream. Personal preference tends to appreciate a keyboard sample orchestra more than big budget film score conductions. It allows the unholy trinity of guitar, bass and drums to carry the brunt of the assault, while the keyboards add the fire and brimstone aroma. Horror film music does appeal to me, but not in the same way that a metal album does. The beans should not touch the rice, if you know what I mean.


• Orion, who does vocals, also plays in Behemoth. While I am a big fan of Behemoth, I don't really like Nergal's vocals. I prefer Orion's death growl singing to that of Nergal.


• Daray from Vader fame plays drums. Nothing wrong with that.


• There is an interesting interplay between bombastic riffs and folk-inspired melodies. For instance, Algorfocus Nefas features a theme very similar to Anton La Vey's Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse. This "heaven and hell" juxtaposing always works for me.

Lerue Delashay's interpretation of 'Battle Hymn of the Apocalypse'.

Astute readers may note that I failed to deride religion in this post. This is not on purpose, and I apologise to regular readers. You could say I took a sabbatical from mocking religion. No pun intended.

Visit the official Vesania site for more information and a few downloads.

Track listing

1. path 1. mystherion. crystaleyes


2. path 2. introit algor


3. path 3. nova persei


4. path 4. algorfocus nefas


5. path 5. marduke's mazemerising


6. path 6. moonthrone. dawn broken


7. path 7. introit focus


8. path 8. daemoonion act II


9. path 9. introit nefas


10. path 10. dukedom black act I

Personell

Orion: guitars; voicals.
Daray: drums and percussion.
Heinrich: bass
Siegmar: keymaster
Annahvahr: guitars

Rating