After the promising first demo tape from Crystalline Darkness comes this split with Pestilência and what a delightful surprise it is. Crystalline Darkness is already a relatively well known entity in its homeland, thanks to several intense live gigs, where Demoniac’s peculiar way of expressing his feelings left almost no one unaffected by it, like I told you in the review for “Melancólica Nostalgia”. Pestilência however didn’t have a lot of recognition at the time of this release, resulting in an enormous surprise and an excellent way to start the career. It’s interesting to listen to this split knowing that both bands know each other’s members so well. Both CD and Pestilência have the same live line-up, although Demoniac and Effrenus keep switching between them, because each mentor of the project has the microphone ranking on its band and joins the bass in the other. Two bands that know each other so well were destined to eventually release a split and now that it is available, I can assure you this was just the perfect idea. The split is quite coherent and regardless of the different nature of the bands, at least in terms of sound, there seems to be a common feeling or essence on both parts, which is quite hard to explain, so I won’t get metaphysical and pretend that I can explain it, because you must hear it if you want to perceive. I shall now make an individual take on both parts of the split.
Crystalline Darkness’ part:
If you have listened to Melancólica Nostalgia, what is most likely to notice in the first moments is the difference of the production levels between the two releases. While Melancólica Nostalgia had a pretty thin rehearsal-like atmosphere (which ended up working real well actually), on Delírios the sound is way clearer and all the instruments are incredibly evidenced. Even though this is a sign of the great departure from the previously established sound, the truth is that this production fits perfectly well the tracks present in Delírios, much like the blurry production fitted the atmospheric wanderings on Melancólica Nostalgia. Before, all the instruments gathered to form a single compact wall of sound which ultimately delivered some extra cohesion but Crystalline Darkness’ style has changed quite a bit and that sort of ambient black metal has evolved to more of a experimental kind of black metal that in sometimes reminds me of Ved Buens Ende did in Written in Waters, although with its fair share of differences. The guitars are now even more dissonant and distill exquisite riffs with avant-garde tendencies which may probably please people with a love for Bergraven or Slaugmaur. The bass work is perhaps the biggest surprise in the instrumental department, with audacious lines that refuse to follow the guitar riffs, generating a strange and yet compelling atmosphere of dreamy contemplation. Shortly after this split was recorded, Funeriis left the band giving leaving his place to be occupied by JS. In "Delírios", Funeriis does another discrete performance like he did in "Melancólica Nostalgia", but his work is now much more varied than he did before with a lot of patterns that keep the listener interested and motivated. CD seem to be heading into a more focused direction, at least compared with what we’ve been presented with on Melancólica Nostalgia but they appear to be leaving slowly the black metal realm, since the songs are even more mid-tempo oriented with very few occasional glimpses of sonic savagery and almost no blasts at all (Sem Paredes I’s beginning is a fine example of the black metal remnants still present). Also Demoniac’s vocal efforts are pretty far away from what I witnessed in Melancólica Nostalgia and they now have a greater expressivity which was hardly exposed on the previous release. Throughout the three tracks, Demoniac manages to deliver a very interesting vocal work showing a varied amount of feelings such as anger, despair, sadness, disdain like he did in the previous demo, although it seems like he has expanded his range of feelings on his vocal performance for this split. The composition process seems to be getting more refined as the “progressist” structures you might have seen in the previous demo are once again present but this time around they are crafted with an even more distinct sense of evolution. This non-linear approach to the sound is praiseworthy and it’s fine to see that there are still people in BM with intentions of doing something different instead of ripping what others have done countless times. Actually, I’d go as far as saying that no one in Portugal plays this type of sound and I also haven’t seen any sort of avant-garde BM coming from the Spanish neighbors, which is great as it can help CD earn some of the respect they’ve been deserving from the outside. Honestly, I believe that CD’s material on Delírios is far more promising and exciting than what we saw in Melancólica Nostalgia, although is still enjoy that first demo very much, but the group of ideas witnessed here on Delírios is much more interesting and capable of resulting in something bigger. Now I’m really looking forward to their debut album, I hope it hits the distros on 2009, as I don’t want to have to wait until 2010.
Pestilência’s part:
After the expansive, aimless voyage done with CD’s part of the split, it’s now time for a more defined experience, where the objective seems clearer and even if doesn’t possessing the astonishing range of emotions from CD’s part it still matches up their Portuguese peers in terms of intensity and experimentalism. “Quimera” opens hostilities with bizarre guitar melodies and irregular drum patterns that could be gladly used as a soundtrack for a surrealistic contemplation of a Tanguy painting. The track meanders without certainties about whether it will actually reach an ending, but after almost 5 minutes of schizophrenic fretboard roaming the time for “Morte Monocromática” comes. This second track is fine example of Effrenus undeniable composition skills, with a structure that defies the barely demanding senses of the accommodated ordinary BM fan. Unorthodox chords are strummed and dance mildly together with acoustic guitar melodies, as an electric solo storms the scene without any type of concern, slowly evolving into a tremolo picking section with vicious drum work. And yet this song is nothing when compared with the behemoth that it is about to come… “Aura de Loucura” possesses an already distinctive Pestilência-like beginning and though the vocals seem a bit lost within the song, every once in a while you can feel Effrenus particularly strong vocal efforts (even if still requiring a few improvements), as well as the outstanding bass work lurking in the shadows of the track. After mere three minutes, comes one of the two acoustic pre-climaxes enhanced by the guitar solos that come inside these calm sections, they’re absolute pure, ethereal beauty, only rivaled by the following harsher versions of these sections where another electric guitar goes berserk in the background just to add an even more epic touch to the already memorable track. What we have here is actually the best track of the whole split and Effrenus did a get job to choose it as the track that ends this chapter, much like the impressive “Sem Paredes I” ends CD’s part.
This is perhaps the best Portuguese split of the year so far, for I am still waiting for splits like Marbh’s split with Cripta Oculta, Penitência’s split with Vapulah and I haven’t heard Dolentia’s split with Tumulum yet, although both Crystalline Darkness and Pestilência stand a bit far away from the black metal practiced by those above mentioned. In the end there are two important things to keep in mind:
-Crystalline Darkness appears to be a pole that attracts as much love as it does with hate. It’s up to you when it comes to decide if you like it or not but whether you like Crystalline Darkness or not, you must respect them for their innovative take on black metal, as they present it meshed with a lot of different influences and the result in my humble opinion is pretty good. If you don’t want to respect them for their ideas and originality, at least praise their evolution and intention to do something different than what they did in “Melancólica Nostalgia”, something that a lot of bands fail to try.
-With this split, Effrenus proved he has the abilities to turn him into a respectable person among the Lusitanian metal sphere. Of all his projects (Amarionette, Mourning Lenore and a few others) this seems to be the one with most potential. You will still hear a lot from this lad so memorize the name of this project and remember to don’t confuse it with Penitência (another great band by the way), given their abysmal differences.
Let’s see what the future has reserved for these two bands, as they both seem to be heading two interesting directions. If you are into black metal that doesn’t follow the formula created 20 years ago, then this might be a split worth checking out. To me, it exemplifies what’s best about them and I’m sure this will be regarded in the future as a fine piece of Lusitanian metal.
Crystalline Darkness
Pestilência
