Genre: Avant-Garde Black Metal
With IIII, this young German band proudly present their debut release on Lupus Lounge, which is the first of a five album deal inked with this label. On their 2004 demo titled 042103Freitod, Farsot had a rather raw and cold version of the black metal art. On this brand new work, their black metal roots are very present, but they have taken an appropriately refined sound production to deliver their darkened message. Their lyrics and song titles are all in their native tongue, conveyed by efficient and expressive rasps, perfectly suiting their musical direction. Of the first six tracks, the pair numbers are all short musical bridges. "Hass: Angst" and "Angst: Tod" are more of the industrial/noise/electronics style while "Tod: Trauer" has a more melodic/ambient approach with choirs, dark keyboards and samplings. The three Thematik ("Haas", "Angst" and "Tod") are all high quality black metal with classical and modern elements: varied paces, strong bass, punchy drums, distorted vs. clean arpeggios, tremolo pickings and of course, great raspy vocals with a certain sickness involved once and a while. Not too many blast beats as such but more of the mid-fast to fast furious paces meeting calmer and melodic passages, much to my liking. Then, the closing song "Thematik: Trauer" is a long lasting pleasure clocking in at 20:40! It doesn't feel that long since it is varied in tempo and intensity; including great clean arpeggios, a nice piano solo, excellent crushing riffs, fast/furious black metal parts with some sort of cool psychedelic lead near the end. IIII is a very good introduction into the underground from a promising young German black metal act.
