Ever since its birth, black metal has been the subject, both for its intrinsic nature of rupture and for all that there was outside of the musical discourse, of a thousand discussions and many diatribes even within the scene itself.
There has always been much discussion of the form rather than the music, also because sometimes there was only the form. Black metal is seen by most as a threat, as a danger to the beauty of divine creation, as a musical genre to be avoided, or as a black T-shirt to be sported in order to be alternative.
Much of the above has been fuelled by many bands who preferred shock to substance. Few bands, those certainly most notable and worthy of attention, in the black metal scene have travelled and continue to walk a path of research and advancement of the genre, contaminating it and taking it where it never was.
One of these scanty groups are the Norwegians Dødheimsgard, who in the course of their career have definitely pushed black metal to the horizon, indeed in their case talking about black metal is limiting, they are sound explorers who also use black metal. With ‘Black Medium Current’ we have reached the sixth studio album, which will be released on 14 April by Peaceville Records, a label that has written the history of much extreme metal. Since the monumental “Umbra omega” in 2015, Dødheimsgard have approached black metal from a decidedly progressive perspective, untying themselves from the concept of the song form and trying to transcend genres to create something totally new that would stand not only as entertainment but as a deep inner reflection capable of improving ourselves.
And this ‘Black medium current’ is a record that focuses on the concept of both individual and collective responsibility, and how to deal with the difficult challenges that life places before us. Starting with the cover art by graphic designer Łukasz Jaszak, who had worked with them before, there is a whole philosophical reasoning involving reality and abstraction, pain and the decisions that are made in difficult times.
As far as the poetic part is concerned, the music continues and further improves on the work that the Norwegian band has done with the last few records, evolving into progressive black metal, but it would be better to say progressive in general, since Dødheimsgard is currently a progressive metal band that also uses black metal in addition to other musical genres. Both the music and the lyrics reach very high heights, the whole thing is very deep and involves both the senses and the brain. The tracks are all of long duration but you remain glued to them like to the pages of a beautiful book, of which you can only wait for the next page.
“Black medium current’ is a continual discovery, a subtle pleasure, the stone we have been dragging around our necks since birth and much, much more, the work of a band that is truly of another level, of a very high level.
