Instead of judging this record purely on past efforts, we're forced to listen to 'Rain Upon The Impure' carefully and judge it for what it is. In my opinion, it's not as good as the debut, but it's still a great album, but in it's own distinctive ways. Such an occurrence is probably a major bonus for fans.
Hearing the same material, but slightly recycled isn't interesting. Getting a taste of something completely different to what we were expecting is and that is how 'Rain Upon The Impure' has panned out. It's different and thank fuck for that. If it tried to imitate the style of the last album, it might fail spectacularly, so why bother?
There was a dark feeling on the previous album, but here is where it really takes off. It's not as fast flowing, it's much slower and takes time to develop. In this instance, we probably end up with far better soundscapes than before. On 'Unlock The Shrine', there were a number of shorter songs. They didn't detract from the atmosphere or harm the record in any way, but with 'Rain Upon The Impure' we're faced with assault after assault.
This is a diverse approach, despite what many may think. The bass and guitars are based more towards repetition than before. This keeps that darkened atmosphere I spoke of earlier at the surface.
The percussion is also an element that has become more repetitive too. Blast beats are occurring more often and more freely. Ambient acoustics offer strange periods of relaxation before the wave of darkness covers us all again. Long may the success continue.
Here he handles all the instruments and vocals by himself. Esentially it offers a deeper and darker experience than most black metal albums. On the way we find a hard wall of guitars made out of a buzzy but controlled sound with barely distinguishable melodic fluctuations. The drumming is very tight and intense.
Von Meilenwald definitely improved since "Unlock the Shrine" released 2 years before. The ocasional bass notes reverb offers a necesary dose of fluidity. Vocally, the album is most impressive. Von Meilenwald's growl is similar to that of Akerfeldt from Opeth on "Orchid". However the former is deeper and stronger.
Ecclesiastic choirs and movie fragments are scattered along the album, which bring the listener to a contemplative state and imbue the atmosphere with obscurity. The fragment is from 'The Haunted Palace', a horror movie from the 60s, made after Poe's telling with the same name. The production gets most credit for the atmosphere though, distant and resonant, you can still hear the instruments without any major intricacy.
Overall a very long album one hour and 20 minutes , atmospheric, contemplative, dark in the true meaning. How can I possibly convey in mere words the utter mastery of Black Metal wielded by the superlative Alexander von Meilenwald?
So I was sweating this new one: how could the first album be matched, let alone surpassed? Surely such a monstrous beast of sound and fury had to be a one-off fit of brilliance by a genius who would vanish or kill himself before he could even try. Amazingly, Rain Upon The Impure is more than a worthy successor to Unlock The Shrine, and manages to be equally brilliant in a completely different direction. While Unlock The Shrine was a display of despair and crushing misanthropy at the hands of a master of sound and aural space, it was an album made up of parts.
You could easily see the parts fitted together — brilliantly so — but it was a distinct album with a lot of room to breathe. The music was focused on distinct riffs and melodies, all set apart by ambient interludes that built the atmosphere and gave the album a more sprawling feel than this one, despite that Rain Upon The Impure is almost ten minutes longer. Rain Upon The Impure is an exercise in fusion of sounds into a single, onrushing wave. The instruments are much less distinct this time, all of them mixed together and pressed into a crush of sound that initially bewilders with its density and richness.
On first spin I had no idea what to make of this, and it sounded like an impenetrable miasma that I could hardly make out. The whole is mixed very together and a bit low, so you have to turn it up about twice as loud as more slickly produced metal. But again, Meilenwald knows exactly what he is doing, as once this is cranked up, it wraps around you like a tidal wave and carries you away, and it will never let you go.
There are seven tracks here, and five of them are full songs all clocking in around fifteen minutes each. This is a nearly eighty-minute album that seems too short, and when the last magnificent tone of the title track is over, I always think "Fuck, is that all? There is so much going on in each song that it seems pointless to even try describing it.
These are densely-packed, massive oceans of fury and emotion, cut apart here and there by enigmatic voice-samples and amazingly delicate melodies. Witness the unearthly Gregorian chant that is built throughout "Blood Vaults", and the simple yet haunting acoustic melody that fills and fulfills the album strongpoint "Soil Of The Incestuous". There is not a single track here I would make shorter by a single note, and this album could be twice as long and I would still want it to be longer.
Some people would compare Meilenwald's genius to other legendary musicians which have haunted the metal landscape. I myself will maintain than no talent to equal his has ever yet been seen within the Black Metal circle, and may not ever again. The man is single-handedly redefining what Black Metal is about and what it is capable of with his seemingly inexhaustible abilities.
I am amazed to be struck speechless yet again by this visionary artist, and I can only imagine what waits in store for the future. If you care about Black Metal at all as a vital, growing genre then you must have this album. Originally written for www. Thereby the fundamentals are quite obvious: A production so unutterable black and reachable still escaping the clutching limbs in its franticness, a vocal performance which convulses marrow, bone and the Norwegian scene in their foundations and in the end the essence: Atmosphere in wasteful abundance.
Too short? Apocalypse — A term not alien to the world of music considering the clear bandwidth of styles commiting themselves partially at least to the fascinating musical version of this phenomenon. Not to mention the bag full of surprises. Thanks for your attention.
Oh yes, buy it. Metal Archives loading Username Password Login. Bands alphabetical country genre Labels alphabetical country Reviews R. Non-existent bass and barely audible drums simply punctuate.
Blood Vaults I: Thy Virginal Malodour further perpetuates the feeling by eventually falling down in slo-mo into the hollow cavern escorted by thundering whispers. Once down at the bottom, Soliloquy of the Stigmatised Shepherd will make sure the emitted funeral doom comes as if from the dungeon, the bells towering up above, unreachable.
There is no way the voice can escape from this subterranean cell, even if church-like singing prayer is invoked. And what deity can really be worshipped given this music?
Soil of the Incestuous crystallizes the atmosphere of utter decadence and decay captured so profoundly on Rain Upon the Impure. Mid-pace or blastbeat, sweet voices of female vampires or succubae, synthesized hammers or free flowing river of melody — the final message is clear. The chaos will reign and descent will continue, through the blackened drone of Balnaa-Kheil the Bleak , to the ugly and frightening closer title track. Bleak brown booklet, with utterly unintelligible text one needs the magnifying glass to read, completes the feeling.
Listening to this, while holding this piece of artwork, makes for even more physical reception of the album. Might be trying to feel my way through this sound the wrong way, I don't know. I can tell there's something special here but it just won't click. Works best for all kinds of atmospheric music.
One of my favourite BM albums. I really like the doom aesthetic surrounding the record, makes for a really bleak atmosphere. That said, going for a walk at night listening to this is terrifying. Even though his new albums are great, I wish he went back to this raw style, he does it perfectly. Have you ever listened to Elysian Blaze? That is, for lack of a better phrase, a fucking amazing album Alastor.
Shame you need a couple of hours to listen to it, preferably not doing much. Saying that though, this isn't short. Cheers for the rec Alastor. Review Summary: The day heaven laments your failure With noise of rain lashing down upon the impure. Rank: 9 for Leading up to when Nagelfar broke up in , their music progressively became darker and less melodic, embracing a more menacing black metal aesthetic. This style reached it's peak in Meilenwald's most personal album to date, his first solo effort Unlock the Shrine , a claustrophobic exercise in depression dedicated to his friend who passed away 3 years prior to it's release.
Continuing on from this release however, his second album Rain Upon the Impure takes a step back and eases the pressure on the listener, giving the listener time to absorb the album while they listen and ultimately leads to his most fulfilled, complete sounding album to date without sacrificing any of the intensity that defined his past releases. Meilenwald has created an expansive, stylistically diverse behemoth, introducing significantly more ambiance to the mix and often changing styles to funeral doom, giving a sprawling feel to the album.
While his previous album felt like slowly being crushed in a small lightless box, Rain Upon the Impure feels like you are the stigmatised shepherd in the second track. Slowly trudging uphill over colourless hills, grey swamps with blackened tree stumps below you in every direction. You aren't being crushed like before, yet the vast blackness around you is infinitely more terrifying. It achieves the same feeling of despair, but does so in a very different manner.
Instrumentally this album is astounding. The production found here does not make it easy to identify each individual instrument. The entire purpose of the production is to bury the instruments together in a murky mix, but whenever the layers are stripped away to lead in or out of an ambient section, you can hear the phenomenal talent he wields his instruments with.
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