The Seventh Sun

Apart from vocalist Jack D Ripper, Meridian was a band without any apparent connection to the metal scene. Their only album 'The Seventh Sun' was praised by contemporary reviewers, and at the time I was eager to buy it and hear what this was about. Ever since then, the album sat quietly on the shelf next to Merrimack and Mezzerschmitt, and years later I realized that I had no idea anymore what the music was like. How did that happen? Obviously time to blow off the dust.

In a nutshell, Meridian played industrial-sounding black metal with a prominent electronic touch, like more bands did in the late 1990s and early 2000s - think of Thorns, Aborym or the aforementioned Mezzerschmitt. To a degree this comparison holds. 'The Seventh Sun' sounds appropriately bleak and sterile, but it's not as vicious and more melodic in character than other albums in this genre. It's commendable that, at a time when musical nihilism was still lurking around every corner in black metal, Meridian firmly went for the compositional challenge. Opener "Fortune" immediately throws the listener some asymmetrical riffs and rhythms to chew on, and the band continues to do so for the entire album. The music is dynamic and goes from blast speed to almost contemplative. Quite a range for sure, but these extremes blend seamlessly in songs like "Dreams To The Sun".

Stylistically, 'The Seventh Sun' may feel a little dated at first glance, primarily due to the omnipresent industrial element - an obvious influence of its time. But to classify Meridian as mere trend followers wouldn't do them justice: the amount of musicality exhibited here is both impressive and timeless. All songs are skillfully arranged and contain surprising left turns, rhythmical twists or sonic finds. After a few spins, I found myself becoming more and more fascinated with this enigmatic album, and went from comparing it to other bands to appreciating it in its own right. It may have faded from memory and slipped into the "deep waters" (another recommendable track) of metal history, but 'The Seventh Sun' remains a strong artistic, if remarkably one-off statement.

The term Meridian has many meanings, which is to be expected from a word that originated more than 600 years ago. When looking at the various song titles present on this lone creation of an obscure Swiss black metal outfit by the same name, one would guess it to be an ironic critique on how humanity thinks itself to be in an age of prosperity, when the lyrics display humanity at its absolute worst. The album’s name “The Seventh Sun” might also hint at an astronomic interpretation, as the term also denotes the great circle of the celestial sphere that passes through the poles at the height of an observer’s vision. Basically any of the seven definitions to be found in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary could apply to what is contained in this rather unusual opus.

The music itself is a curious blend of hideous shrieks, rapidly strummed riffs, cosmic sounding keyboard ambiences, blast beats, and an occasional techno beat interlude. Although by today’s standards such mixing of industrial and black metal influences is not all that uncommon, circa 2002 it was probably not as commonplace. The resulting picture mostly depicts a futuristic society where humans have advanced much in technology, yet continue to regress as rational beings. While most black metal bands that I’ve encountered tend to stick mostly to horrific themes, Meridian seems a bit more philosophically oriented and exhibits a musical maturity that is rarely observed in a debut album by a band mostly made up of newcomers, save perhaps Jack D. Ripper whose work is known to me through a connection with violinist Pete Johansen.

The album starts off in a quasi-tradition fashion with “Fortune”, in the sense the electronically generated sounds at the beginning serve as a prelude to what is otherwise standard dissonant black metal with muddied harmonic intervals and rapid fire drumming. “Immortal Ancestry” takes the stylistic chaos down a slight peg until about the 1:12 mark where we get a near accidental sounding dance beat, but otherwise keeps the focus on evil guitars and eviler vocals. From here on in the mixing of styles gets more and more blatant, as guitar effects that are equally as spacey as the synthesized sounds start to creep into the mix in “Deep Waters”, which literally conjures up images of a shipwrecked castaway being circles by sharks with it’s horrific atmosphere. “Abraham Timecode” is more industrial/gothic than black metal, both in vocal delivery and in instrumentation. It’s a bit slow and subdued; definitely one of the weaker songs found on here.

The next few songs kind of run together a bit. “Dream to the Sun” has another techno intro followed by more of the same, almost indistinguishable from “Immortal Ancestry” once it gets going. “The last deception” is the most aggressive of the tracks on here, particularly the vocal delivery which sounds so raw that you can almost hear Paris’ vocal chords shatter and then regenerate before your ears. Finally we arrive at my favorite song “Sol Septem Meridian”, which I believe translates into the sun of the seventh meridian, is one of the most outlandish things I’ve ever heard. A term such as black prog could probably apply to the cosmic sounding instrumentation and vocal effects, as well as the two chords that make up the majority of the song. The album then closes with a more traditional black metal song in “Absolute Research”, ratcheting the aggression back up and bringing it all to a rather frightful conclusion.

As a general I tend to dislike black metal because most of it tends to be amateur sounding and poorly produced, which is one of the aspects of the genre that most of its fan base regard as its strongest virtue. “The Seventh Son” is probably among the most professionally produced albums to be heard in this genre, probably up there with Dimmu Borgir’s most well known albums. This may turn off some to their material, but it is the honest truth of what I like about this album, purposeful aggression articulated through a well balanced medium. It comes strongly recommended to fans of the most aggressive fringes of Gothic Metal, because that is what it most resembles.