Through the Eyes of Night... Winged They Come

This album is one of the greatest pieces of Black Metal ever recorded. This is thinking man's Black Metal; it showcases some of the most complex song structures I've ever heard and incredibly erudite lyrics. Those who are weak in their convictions as far as Black Metal goes need not even try this album.

The CD opens with the sound of a powerful storm, which quickly breaks into the rage of In Magnificent Glory. This song sets the pace for the album, with lyrics consisting of overthrowing the Light and music which leaves you awed. By this Axe We Rule follows. One of the best songs on the album, it will make your ears bleed from the sheer harshness of it. The Leech Within comes next, departing from the warlike lyrics yet keeping the intense musical structures of the past songs. Whispered Myths of Ancient Times steps the speed up yet another notch. The title track follows. This is the best song on the album, both powerful and moving. The guitar work takes center stage here, showing the talent Fog truly possesses. In the Sorrow of a Crimson Sea comes next, which represents what has by this point become standard awe-inspiring music for the band. The final song, The Storm Unholy, ends the album powerfully, although it is notably slower than the rest of the songs.

Fog is an amazing band. Through the Eyes of Night... ranks up there with Black Metal classics like Pure Holocaust and Under a Funeral Moon. With this album, Lord Typhus and the rest of the band have made their mark on the entirety of the international Black Metal scene.

Fans of better-than-mediocre USBM will be glad to hear about another decent band not screwing up black metal, and that band is Fog. The sound takes many influences from a wide spectrum of styles of black metal, arriving at a thrash-black-hybrid sound similar to Stormbringer or a faster Sacramentum. The musicians here demonstrate considerable talent and ambition, and for the most part, they succeed in creating a body of work that demands some attention.

Almost completely riff-driven, the guitars are the definite stars of the album, which shows almost no signs of ambience, keyboards, or even more than a few scant slow or acoustic intros. This is mid-to-fast-paced black metal that constantly propels itself onward upon the wings of riff after riff of speed-picked blocks of chords and buzzing tremolo melodies. The chords themselves are worthy of note, as many times they are not typical minor or Aeolian variants of the same evil sound, but many times more complex and intriguing fragments of twisted folk voicings and unusual tense dissonant intervals. The sound of these chords comes across with a distinctively thick sound similar to some of the harmonic ideas used by earlier Satyricon, Sacramentum, and Immortal. Also unique is the use of wide expansive intervals as open strings mesh with higher-fret chords, creating a lush sound not normally created in darker guitar-driven music. There are liberal portions of more traditional metal churnings; some bordering on a headbang-inducing thrash sound, which also spice up this band’s sound and keep the faster riffs from becoming too similar. Melodies seem to ride closer to the chordal and harmonic accompaniment than usual, as lead guitar phrases seem to be voiced in the same octave as the thick chords they play amongst. There is also a classical somber sound to many of the musical ideas presented here, sometimes demanding comparison to the Sacramentum and Dissection influences of this diverse chimera of black metal style.

Percussion is a definite highlight of the album. Drum passages are anything but static and forgetfully rumbling, and in fact the use of the cymbals cuts nicely through the thick distorted chords to provide glimmers of light in a churning void of dense and heavy darkness. The cymbals here are often fast and staccato, easily drawing comparisons to Hellhammer’s technique of giving cymbals as much if not more rhythmic power than the snare and kick drums. Long sections of raging melody are broken up by endless variation on the part of the drums, giving the passages room to develop and mutate as they change tempos more than one would expect from a melodic black metal band.

Despite the so far glowing musical praise, this album is a bit too ambitious and lacking of cohesion to be truly great. Sections of epic dark glory as blocks of slowly mutating chords cascade forever downward meet abrubtly with lighter melodic classically-inspired passages with no transitions, however brief. The songwriting is good, but sometimes too muddled in its own layered majesty to step back and know when to take out sections of the instrumentation to let the overall sonic aspects of the song progress and flow organically.

Vocals are a good and consistent mid-ranged rasping scream, working well with the music to accent the mood of certain passages and leave others to their own instrumental devices. However, there are two places with clean sung vocals, never too forward in the mix, which regardless are a poor and seemingly almost humorous choice. The end of the song “By This Axe We Rule” is dusted in the mocking metal laughter one often finds in older black metal releases, and while somewhat tongue-in-cheek, seems forced and out of place.

Overall the album is well-done, well-recorded, and well worth the time to seek out. I could have done without the rain samples and ambient passages at the end, which seemed very tacked-on to add ‘evil’ and ‘mystery’ to an otherwise anti-ambient riff-fest of complex black metal, but barring that every mistake this band makes on their journey to synthesize a unique metal voice is very forgivable and many times enjoyable. I look forward to their next release.