Black Medicine / Fekete orvosság

Okay, so what have we here? Post 2000 "black metal" from Hungary. One of the most refreshing bands of this genre from Hungary were Sear Bliss, with their innovative approach to the more extreme form of music and that's about all that comes to mind when I think of un-generic refreshing bands from Hungary and then there's "Aetherius Obscuritas", which is an impossible name to learn or even speak out for that matter. The language being Hunnic, the titles are even more obscure for someone who doesn't speak the language than Japanese, well maybe as obscure and irritating, but... interesting.

I've heard of this band a couple of months ago, where somebody told me I should really check out their newest release, comparing the "freshness" to some other great bands from the Balkans and well come it as it may, I got this one as a promo, and with hundreds of chores and some heavy partying, I've finally managed to give it a digital spin and listen to the rather pleasant and satisfying music on this digital piece of plastic. Aetherius Obscuritas (god what an awful name) have a lot of different approaches to black metal, be it fast, catchy or softer/melodic, the songs offer an enjoyable variety of the music, expanding the horizon a little bit further then your average post 90s crap that only focuses on being as "br00tal" and "trve" as fuck. So there may be a lot of melancholy and all that romantic stuff involved, but as far as the laughable gimmick shit goes, Aetherius Obscuritas cut down on fancy stuff and get straight to the point.

After a couple of minutes of this album, one can easily recognize that the experience won't end in some half-hearted crap that you have to listen to, just to say you're through or a beer-coaster for some dumb party where you take your worst CDs to, hoping that you'll forget them there or that they will get broken by some drunk fuck. The atmosphere is very pleasant, there is nothing too over-exhausted or over-distorted, so the listening experience is quite mellow and "easy". When one is familiar with black metal and all the classics, one will not complain with this band, simply because the music is neither dull nor over-focused on idiotic self-promotion details, such as the pseudo-aggressive and cartoonish presentation of most "myspace" mutants today. Hell, if you want an audible comicstrip, try J-pop, if you want to listen to good music with a lot of commitment, look for obscure gems, such as this band, or to get more to the point and topic, this album.

Fekete Orvossag is as aggressive a music as the name is hard to pronounce. The sonic hail of Hunnic blasphemy is as fierce as it is enjoyable. Think of it as a "cocktail" of sorts. While the album begins in a very classic manner with little hope for innovation, approximately after the middle of the third track, you begin to realize the differences in style, due to the local prerequisites of the country. There are epic sung parts, instrumentals that don't overdue it in terms of length or hokeyness, alas there are also parts that aren't very clever, yet they are luckily too few to elaborate further, such as the dim riffing of "Black Demon", which could of been a better cover, but since this is just bonus material, we can turn our heads the other way and still praise this album for being good.