(written by Islander)
First impressions do matter, even if our younger selves grew tired of hearing that stern advice from parental figures. In the case of how we spend our time around here, we see how bands and record labels choose singles to make first impressions of albums that the public can’t yet hear.
Sometimes those choices turn out to be misleading, like the strained politeness of a wild child being introduced to a stranger, or often like the forced and feigned wildness of someone who turns out to be really very dull. No wonder people usually wait to hear everything before making a purchase decision, unless it happens to be a band whose previous music they know well, but sometimes even then because even the best of us make mis-steps.
In the case of the Portuguese black metal band Vetus Sanguis, the first impression we had of its debut album Capítulo I – Dimensão Horrenda was “Trombetas Diabólicas,” a song that you won’t reach until nearly a third of the album has gone by. The impression it made was startling. When we premiered it, we advised listeners to take big gulps of air before listening.
Photos by Carlos Silva
Without prelude, that song surges forward, with drums furiously hammering and the riffing generating a high whine, like a phalanx of circle saws cutting through dense wood (or bone). The guitars wildly writhe in a delirium of madness, and as they do, the band’s solo creator Perversus maliciously howls and screams the lyrics in Portuguese.
The layered guitars rise and fall as they swarm and flicker, seeming to channel both fierce rapture and ruinous torment in a blend of fire-bright and caustically raw tones, and the music also whirls like a diabolical dance, creating exhilarating variations on the opening riff. And while the drum patterns also change, there is no abatement in the song’s explosive intensity — or in the rabid ugliness of the vocals.
The Helldprod label, which is releasing the album tomorrow (April 16th), sums it up as vicious, wrathful, and frightening, and that first single bears out the description, but “Trombetas Diabólicas” is also fascinating, even entrancing, and surprisingly elegant despite the harshness of some of its ingredients.
In all those respects, “Trombetas Diabólicas” made not only a very strong first impression but a very authentic one, in the sense that it is an accurate emblem of much of what the rest of the album delivers. The parts that it doesn’t completely represent aren’t disappointments, but only different dimensions of a more complex whole.
Thoughts of wild spinning dances come to the fore quite often in the ensuing songs, as do thoughts of madness in more deleterious manifestations. Perversus‘s carefully crafted, dense, and immersive union of raw and more clear guitar tones channels both vicious, diabolical frenzies and frenzies of fear (as in the second song “Ódio Viciante“), as well as dismal feelings of hopelessness, grief, or grim defiance (as in the first song “Campos Infernais” and the third one, “Gritos Silenciosos“), with pattern-shifting drumwork and variations in the riffing style enhancing the changes.
You’ll also figure out from those first three songs that Perversus cooks up riffs with penetrating power and staying power too, and that the melodies often seem to have an ancient resonance to them, sometimes near-medieval, sometimes indeed elegant, to go along with the madcap cavorting of devils and demonesses (or just possessed peasantry) flying around blazing fires. The music has at least one foot in the camp of raw black metal, but the other firmly placed in the camp where memorable riffs matter (not that the two are exclusionary, but hopefully you get the point.)
The album includes two pieces much shorter than the rest. One of them, “The Possibility of Life’s Destruction,” appears near dead center in the record, just after those first three songs mentioned above. Based on its brevity, you might guess it’s some kind of instrumental interlude, but it’s not. It’s just a shorter version of turmoil and tumult, a quicker episode of wildly spinning and swirling guitars, punchy bass, battering beats, and scorching screams — the kind of sonic madness that could be interpreted as headlong jubilation or unhinged desperation, maybe depending on your mood.
The other short piece, “Transcendência,” ends the album. It’s on the other side of madness, like a coin that’s tossed and lands with the gold side up. There is a feeling of wonder in the bright and piercing shine of the slowly chiming notes, the reverberating strummed chords, and their mysterious echoes. As you might guess, the Portuguese word means “Transcendence”, the hopeful place where the album’s journey ends.
In between those two short pieces in the album’s back half, Vetus Sanguis continues delivering rhythmically compulsive and melodically hook-y songs, each one featuring those maniacally cut-throat vocals, quick shifts in tempos and percussive patterns, and variations in mood — though no matter how sinister, stately, or infused with suffering they may be (and many of them are all those things for sure), wild spinning dances, thrusting thrash chords, and punk beats and punkish riffs are never very far away. (Yes, there’s punk in this music too, maybe especially in “Jardim de Marmore“).
To return to where we started, now’s the time to hear everything, no longer depending on first impressions to make a decision about whether to claim the whole album. By my lights, it’s an easy call. This album is one that’s unlikely to lose its heart-jumping allure over time. It will age but I doubt it will grow old.
Perversus performed everything on Dimensão Horrenda, and also mixed and mastered the album. The cover art and logo are by Blaspher, and the layout by Allefer Rocha.
Helldprod, in a co-release with Murder Records, will issue Dimensão Horrenda on CD, cassette tape, and digital formats. For more info, check the links below.
PRE-ORDER:
https://helldprod.com/shop/index.php
https://helldprod.bandcamp.com/album/vetus-sanguis-cap-tulo-i-dimens-o-horrenda
order@helldprod.com
info@murder-records.eu
VETUS SANGUIS:
https://www.instagram.com/vetus_sanguis_official
https://www.facebook.com/VetusSanguis