Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae Malitiaes

Enough already. Abruptum's approach to black metal (if their music can be called that) was refreshingly unique and menacingly sinister on their debut album. Something of sheer morbid intensity that had never been done before. Then the second album came along and made it painfully clear that its uniqueness was a primary factor for why the debut worked as well as it did, because said sophomore effort did pretty much the exact same thing all over again, and with the novelty value out the window it ended up accomplishing pretty much nothing at all. However, I guess It disagrees with me on that one, because guess what followed the second album...

Yep, the exact same thing AGAIN, for a third time, presented in an even more pointless way than its predecessor. And the biggest problem isn't that only the listener gets bored by Abruptum milking the same novelty idea over and over again, the band - in this case just It alone - seems to have become bored with it, because while there was at least some effort involved in the first two albums (the first one far more so than the second) this is pretty much as half-assed as it gets when it comes to duplicating the previously successful Abruptum formula.

The main ingredients are the same. Random percussion, a few ghost train effects and outbursts of chaotic background noise here and there, doomy detuned and likely improvised guitars and vocals alternating between screaming and wailing, complimented by occasional whispery growls. Doesn't sound like much, but for the debut album it worked, definitely very gloomy, to the point of being creepy. On here it does nothing at all. It's like if you want to make a sequel to a splatter flick, you got to know that fans of the first one are going to be pretty desensitized to the level of gore seen in the first one, so you got to try to make the sequel even more disgusting. Imagine a sequel to Cannibal Holocaust in which the worst splatter effect is a woman cutting herself in the finger while peeling an apple. That's pretty much what this album does. The vocals are more shy than before, for one. The background noise is quieter. The percussion is less climactic and past the point of just being random - it's completely irrelevant to anything else going on. And last and definitely not least, the guitars are far more sparse. It's like Diet Abruptum™...

Pointless, pointless, pointless.

Just avoid this one.

Yes, well, it's hard to rate such an album - are you meant to rate its musicianship (there's none), its atmosphere (there's heeeeaps), or the complete package of audio/visual evil (which is intense)? I know for me, it's one of the quintessential albums of genre-breaking mystery, that is STILL hard to define properly. Yes, it's just a buncha silly noise, and no, it's not really "metal", but it's certainly as "metal" as anything Sunn O have ever done, and has to be seen from the same sort of viewpoint. It may be a non-metal buncha silly noise, but it's a *groundbreaking* non-metal buncha silly noise.

And it's evil as fuck.

If I was reviewing it straight after hearing it for the very first time, I'd be giving it a 100, and raving on and on about "this is nothing like anything I've ever heard before, fuck, these guys have broken my brain" - but I'm not. I'm writing this after many years listening to many many things just as fringey, just as abstract, and perhaps even more powerfully disturbing. So it loses some points for hindsight, I guess; although it is most definitely disturbing and abstract and kinda redefined black metal, there's been so much more evil, hypnotic, disturbing and madness-inducing released since. My point is, I suppose, that all that other stuff probably wouldn't have ever been released if this album hadn't've been released already.

So there you go. I don't think you're meant to *listen* to it like a metal album - you're meant to *experience* it like a thunderstorm.

“Vi Sonus Veris Nigrae” weird, abstract and abysmal noise. If you expect some Black Metal don’t buy this, because this not Metal at all. This is the kind of thing that must be listened when angry, or when you are planning to kill someone. Here you will find agonizing screams, drums, sometimes noise coming out of a guitar and some chants in the background. This is pure audio hell, this will scare the shit out of any person not associated with Black Metal, or as well some will find this ridiculous, depending on their point of view. So if you need some dark background music probably you will enjoy this, but don’t buy it expecting to hear music, because it is not.

First off, the only aspects on this album that garnered it any points were the humorous layout, and It (Tony Sarkka) being the sole creator behind the sounds you hear. There is no music on this album, and simply this is nothing more than a collectors item. Humourous it may be, but to call it music would be a far stretch. Labeled "the audio essence of pure evil" (which appears on the layout) one wonders how much the creator actually took this seriously. One plus is the layout though, which is simple, but contains a well done painting of It.

What you hear is possibly the first all out noise project coming from the black metal genre. There is no skill or thought (that you can tell) put into the making of this, just randomness at its most abstract. With black metal esque screams placed here and there you get some entertainment out of the sheer novelty of it all. Drums are played periodically, basically sparadically blasting to random cymbols and skins crashing. There is also some guitars (bass and six string) that really dont do much, no patterns or riffs. Since this was recorded in Abyss studios it does have a very good mix, but whats a good mix do for noise...nothing.

There is warnings on the front and back layout, giving you ample heads up to the effects this album could have on its listeners, but if you take this seriously your just fucking stupid. This album is mainly for those of you who like bizarre non sense, with zero musical qualities and evenless of a point (or maybe I just missed that?). It takes alot to make it through this release, due to the callous disregard of what makes music listenable, and the fact that its a little over a hour in length. There are much better albums in this bands discography than this, but if you got a hard on for Abruptum than this may be for you.