Europa; or, The Spirit Among the Ruins

Music like Burzum, vocals like Capricornus – that sums up it perfectly. This album by Flame of War doesn’t rank very high in the originality stakes musically but it’s certainly one of the better “Burzum rip-offs” out there, the music is good. More conventional than “Transcendence” yes, but still good. For this reason “Europa; Or, the Spirit Among the Ruins” gets a good score from me and I absolutely recommend it if you’re a fan of Burzum. On the other hand, ripping off Capricornus’ vocal style is certainly not very common in the BM scene, so in this respect your could say that the band are original. For those who have never heard Capricornus’ vocals, I can say that they are a combination of growling and barking, done in a rough manner. Vocalist Njord succeeds very well in his Capricornus imitation and hadn’t I known who’s doing the vocals on this recording, I would’ve guessed it was Capricornus himself.

The production, especially the guitar sound, bears a strong resemblance to Burzum’s debut. However, structurally the four metal tracks (the other two are non-metal tracks, I’ll get to them later) bear a resemblance to “Hvis Lyset Tar Oss”, as they are long and often rely on repetition of the Burzum-inspired riffs. Looking at their discography, I see that the band is fond of writing long songs. The good thing is that they, both on this album and its successor at least, have the talent to make these long songs work. Another thing reminding me strongly of Burzum is the use of keyboards on “Imperium”. During the part of the track in which they are used, the keyboards simply repeat the same notes over and over again in a manner similar to Burzum’s “Det Som en Gang Var” track.

The metal tracks are more straightforward than those on “Transcendence”. Both “Imperium” and “Heathen Mysticism Pt II” have build-ups with guitars in the beginning but these don’t last as long as the build-ups on the follow-up do. There are also no calm breaks with clean guitars in the middle the tracks, as is the case on “Transcendence”.

What’s left to talk about are the non-metal tracks. “Heathen Mysticism Pt I”, a good mournful synth piece, opens the album. It creates an intense feeling of sadness, perhaps mourning the state of present-day Europe. The other non-metal track, “Ragnarok – Beholding the Inevitable”, is a clean guitar + bass instrumental. Just like the intro, it has a sad vibe to it. It’s useless for me to go on anymore, I’d simply end up mentioning the B word (and no, I don’t mean “bullshit”) again and again. By this point, you know yourself whether this album fits your taste or not.