ALBUM REVIEW: Vitrun – Carpe Noctem

CARPE NOCTEM are slowly reaching a point where they are regarded as one of Iceland’s premier black metal acts. It’s been a whole five years since the release on their last full length, In Terra Profugus, a great album that was well received by critics and fans alike. Luckily, the lengthy gap between the last album and their newest has paid off, because their latest record, Vitrun, sees them exceed the perilously high bar they set for themselves on their debut, and craft some dark, atmospheric and haunting black metal in the process.

Söngurinn Sem Ómar Milli Stjarnanna starts this album off strong, with some solid, fierce and sepulchral black metal. The drums set a hypnotic metre, which acts as a great base on which to build some jarring, cacophonous guitars, dense, tar thick gutturals and an equally thick, sludgy bass line, all wrapped up in a shroud of grim and grating atmospherics. This is an incredibly robust piece of music, with plenty of haunting, discordant flourishes thrown in for good measure, ensuring for an excellent opening track that sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Upplausn is a deeply atmospheric and bleak track, which feels monolithic and dark right off the bat. When the main part of the song kicks in, it’s an eerie, hypnotic song with some mesmerising guitar works, brilliant, intricate drum patterns and some truly arid, howling vocals that tie in nicely with the discordant and grating edge of the music. The whole track sounds huge and monstrous, with some oppressively intense and visceral moments providing some really good, memorable parts that stick in the listeners head immediately. It’s ferocious and doom-laden throughout, with lots of hazy sections thrown in for good measure. It does begin to wind down towards its final moments, with the ambience once again becoming more prominent than the music itself, ending it on a similar note to its beginning.

Og Hofið Fylltist Af Reyk slowly crawls out of the speakers in a funeral dirge, with plodding, robust lead guitars and steady, pattering drums setting a grim and murky feel. With some excellent, sparse guitar melodies peppering this song, it manages to have some trite and sublime elements interwoven in amongst those tar thick, sludgy rhythms and the measured groove of the drums. Just over a third of the way into the track, it quickly descends headlong into a much more cacophonous and chaotic motif that sounds, at certain points, utterly demented. This whirling void of noise quickly becomes a very primal and primitive section relying on the percussion to carry the track, with some jarring guitar lines liberally peppering the sound and adding a sharp contrast to the depth and power of the drums. This song in particular in an exercise in extremity, with CARPE NOCTEM pushing their sound to its most caustic and acerbic outer edges.

Hér Hvílir Bölvun, with its softer, yet bleak and dissonant guitar hooks and hypnotic drumming, is an unerringly dark and haunting track which makes great use of unorthodox chords and off kilter tempos to create a track that is genuinely unnerving at times. Backed up with a sludgy bass line and some grating ambience, it has an undeniably tense atmosphere that slowly builds before launching into a far more robust, but nonetheless still measured, motif that is peppered with a few solid melodies. The vocals are hideous and feral, and add yet more to the overall feel of this song, injecting plenty of sepulchral aggression into the mix. This whole song gradually grows and gains momentum, both in terms of tempo and in terms of intensity, before hitting an absolutely monstrous zenith comprised of jarring, descending guitar hooks, thunderous drum patterns and utterly bestial vocals. This track as a whole sounds brilliant, providing a cacophonous and eerie note that takes the album into an even darker, demonic direction.

Úr Beinum Og Brjóski is an incredibly short piece of music, by this albums standards, but acts more as a brief instrumental break from the rest of the record to cleanse the pallet before the albums closing offering. It’s centred around some minimalist, primitive drumming and equally sparse and eerie guitar compositions. This is a heavily atmospheric affair, and feels much more bombastic and dark than it actually is. It’s a great interlude that leads seamlessly into Sá Sem Slítur Vængi Fugunnar Hefur Náð Hugljómun“, the albums final track; this last song is a sprawling, near twelve minute long masterpiece that that has some of the most “conventional” music on the whole record, with some solid black metal leads and tight, steady drums. However, there’s a fair bit of distortion on some of those guitars, and the crashing symbols of the drums create a lulling, hypnotic feel to it that does an excellent job of drawing the listener in. Despite the songs lengthy running time, it goes by very quickly, and feels far shorter than it is in reality. This is due mostly to the amount of music that the band are able to fit in here, never dwelling on a single motif for two long, meaning that nothing is around long enough to grow dull or lose its impact on the music. The music does slowly shift towards a purely ambient noise based style, which brings this record to a close in a hair-raising, haunting and creepy fashion.

CARPE NOCTEM have managed to create their best record at date with Vitrun. It’s an incredibly dark, ferocious and eerie record that takes mild progressive elements, blends them with black metal and a palpable, primal doom sound, resulting in an album that is equal parts grandiose and claustrophobic. It could very well prove to be a late candidate for album of the year, black metal or otherwise. This band are truly one of the best acts to come out of Iceland, which is no easy feat to achieve, considering the high calibre and quality of black metal that has been coming out of the nation of the last couple of years. With any luck, this record will take CARPE NOCTEM to new heights, and see them go on to be regarded as one of the best contemporary black metal acts on the planet.

Rating: 9/10

Vitrun is out now via Code666 Records. 

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