Black Funeral - Vukolak

Black Funeral - Vukolak

2010 / Black metal

This weekend I decided to continue my journey to check out Black Funeral and gave Vukolak, the latest full-length release of the band, a couple of spins. It appears that Vukolak is a pretty tough nut to crack and even after listening to the album multiple times, I am still hesitant to say anything about it. I mean it’s pretty clear that it’s one of band’s weaker albums (or at least from those that I have listened to), but with each new spin the album seemed at least a bit more enjoyable. 

The sound is about the same I have come to expect from the band; it’s essentially raw black metal, but what’s new on this album is the introduction of a chaotic aspect to the songwriting, which unfortunately works only half of the time and is ‘utilized’ almost excessively throughout the album. The song quality also seems quite inconsistent and the tracks don’t align as nicely as on the band’s previous albums. What surprised me positively are the couple instrumental/ambient tracks amid all the black metal stuff, which help in creating the obscure atmosphere for the album. 

I think there are multiple strong tracks on the album but the whole set could be way more balanced and engaging, but at the same time I am not convinced that I have yet understood the album fully, so I’ll most likely have to spin it a couple more times before I can make my mind about it.

Black Funeral - Az-i-Dahak

Black Funeral - Az-i-Dahak

2004 / Black Metal

I have had this on/off relation to Black Funeral for multiple years where I keep coming back to them but the urge to listen their stuff fades away relatively quickly. In general I have considered their music worth listening to but somehow I often forget about them until something reminds me of their existence again. However, recently I decided to check them out more thoroughly and for that purpose I just acquired a copy of Az-i-Dahak, and so here are my first thoughts on it.

So Black Funeral has a long history in making vampirism themed black metal/dark ambient and Az-i-Dahak is listed as the midpoint of the band’s discography. On the first spin I take note that that the sound is not as raw as on some of the band’s other albums and apparently the ambient elements are not as strongly present either. (Or then I remember it all wrong because I haven’t listened to their stuff in ages, but anyway..) So what are we actually left with?

To summarize, Az-i-Dahak is a thirty minutes long set of shorter monotonic black metal tracks. Now to be honest, I have thing for this kind of black metal if it’s done correctly, and in my mind this album manages it really well. 

The album goes for a semi-raw soundscape so the sound is rather unpolished, gritty and partly kind of flat, but that’s all part of the magic of this album for me at least. The atmosphere is kept consistent and it is aggressive as well as cold. I think that not a single bad track managed to make its way into the album and there is just enough variation between them to make the whole thing a short but engaging experience. At the time of finishing this text I have already went through the whole thing like four times so I guess it’s safe for me to say that I like it. I think that anyone interested in raw or monotonic black metal could find this worth a spin or two.