The Well of Light Has Finally Dried

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'.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Hell Yeah! Blodsrit is one of the few bands in Black Metal that achieved to improve in every album, and "The Well of Light Has Finally Dried" is, without any doubt, the culmination of a continuous growing process.


After a really promising "Secrets Unveiled", came two mediocre albums as "Supreme Misanthropy" and "Occularis Infernum". Both were total victims of really weak productions, the first one due to the one-dimensional and monotonous sound, and the second one lacking any kind of aggression and atmosphere. This two works hid some promising elements between many average Black Metal riffs.


Things changed with the hand of Mieszko Talarczyk (R.I.P.) behind the controls of "Helveteshymner", taking those promising tunes to a new dimension of aggression and darkness, turning Blodsrit in one of the most interesting acts of the Swedish Black Metal Scene.


Two years later "The Well of Light Has Finally Dried" sees the light of day showing a new turn in Blodsrit's sound. The powerful and crystalline sound of "Helveteshymner" fades away to change Blodsrit in a raw atmospheric entity, able to mix the perfection of the melodies already present in the previous opus with the rawest aggression that one can imagine. A perfect synthesis between the saddest melodies and the rawest anger of Black Metal. Just listen the initial tune of "Into Nothingness" and you'll definitely feel your neck skin crawl.


Sound wise "The Well of Light..." also stands for a rawer concept in Blodsrit's career. The guitars sound as razor-sharp as in the previous album, but now adding a new atmosphere that wasn't present before. The vocals sound even harsher than in everything they have done until today, while the drums still maintain the same organic and acoustic sound of "Helveteshymner", obviously far from the synthetic double bass drums of "Occularis Infernum".


Well, finally, if you consider yourself as a devoted follower of the black arts done in the right way, you shouldn't ignore the opportunity of listening to one of the purest Black Metal expressions of 2006. Only one complaint about this album: Don't you think that an album with only 28 minutes is too short?