ALBUM REVIEW: Teufelsgeist – Urfaust
There is nobody in the realm of extreme music today that is quite like URFAUST, their alcohol-soaked avant-garde black metal is fiercely unique and utterly fascinating. In the closing days of 2020 they have released a bold concept, Teufelsgeist, which presents itself as a Diptych, a twin pronged assault of ambient album and premium gin, intended to be experienced together, in solitude and without light, to mirror the stages of intoxication.
The album opens with Offerschaal Der Astrologische Mengvormen, which carries a celebratory, almost triumphant cadence. The track is unusually euphoric for URFAUST, utilising an orchestral soundscape presided over by VRDRBR‘s hypnotic drumming. After around half of the track has elapsed we get our first taste of IX‘s mournful wail. It injects pure melancholy into the piece, cultivating the image of a climactic scene of an unwritten, tragic opera, before the track slows to barely a crawl and allows the keyboard melodies to ring out and slow down, crawling around the listener’s head like half-memories from the night before.
The following tracks take the mood to a much darker and deeper place. In Bloedscrament Voor De Geestenzieners The light and melody that URFAUST allowed onto their palette is now gone, jubilance replaced with misery, melody replaced with sonorous drones and distant, almost ritualistic sounding drums. IX‘s half-operatic wail is here replaced with snarling and throaty howls. The atmosphere of the piece takes a turn for the downright oppressive and will likely shred the nerves of any prospective listener.
Following this, we have Van Alcoholische Verbittering Naar Religieuze Cult, which has a good, old-school icy black metal introduction, slowly raising the threatening cadence of the gin soaked nightmare that is this album, rising to a crescendo of rumbling harsh noises before spiraling like drunken shame into the sounds of winter winds.
As a result, the song’s successor, De Filosofie Van Een Gedesillusioneerde feels like the second part of the same track, but utilises a much more traditional URFAUST sound, laguishing in misanthropic atmosphere, bringing VRDRBR‘s hypnagogic drumwork and IX‘s sludgy guitar together to spellbinding effect. It actually feels like forbidden mood music to the ritual sacrifice of distilled spirits and as such stands against some of the best ambient material of URFAUST‘s career.
If the previous two tracks represented the downward spiralling of hedonism and depravity offered by intoxication, the final track Het Godverlaten Leprosarium is the murky and bleary morning after. There is deep and distant-sounding incomprehensible throat-singing occuring, heralding the sounding of a dolorous bell. It is oppressive and unpleasant and manages to feel like a decent representation of the fog that resides in the head of a previously intoxicated person.
Overall, this is a win for URFAUST. Teufelsgeist is an experience you won’t get anywhere else, which does a cracking job of what it set out to be, an ambient album that represents the stages of intoxication. If you have ever been in such a state this album will more than likely conjure fragments of memories of bygone events and encounters, but when taken at face value, it is also a solid slab of mystical, unearthly, ambient black metal, perfect for both ritual drinkers and drinking rituals alike.
Rating: 8/10
Teufelsgeist is out now via Ván Records.
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