I’m convinced that Vindsval, the figure behind peerless enigmatic Black Metal entity Blut aus Nord, picks which styles they want the next BaN album to sound on a whim. On any album, the listener could face beautiful Atmospheric or Melodic Black Metal, such as on one of the Memoria Vetusta albums or 2019’s Hallucinogen. On the other hand, the listener could stumble upon a level of Black Metal so tripped out that it would make a sleep paralysis demon blush—the 777 trilogy or 2017’s Deus Salutis Meae being the culprits there. This new album, Disharmonium: Nahab (released now shorly after 2022’s Disharmonium: Undreamable Abysses) falls into the latter category. However, unlike those frightening affairs, Nahab expounds its weirdness by doing everything it can to lure the listener into a nightmare-like trance for all 44 minutes of its runtime.
The ambient “Hideous Dream Opus” songs separate Nahab into three movements and aim to give a sense of context to the album as a whole. Ambient interludes and intros don’t often work, but these pieces land short, sweet, and to the point, necessary in this context. Would they be better off as part of the proper songs that follow? Sure, as Vindsval constucts the proper tracks as the true standouts of the album. With two distinct vocal styles ranging from unknowable frenzied gibbering to unintelligible blackened shriek-growls, Vindsval puts forth one of his most impressive vocal performances in recent memory. Standout tracks include “The Endless Multitude”, which employs a meditative sway before giving way to the psychedelia within, and “Queen of the Dead Dimension”, which adds an Industrial Black Metal sound to the album. The guitars fluidly focus on a raw hypnotism rather than typical Black Metal trem-picking. This careful balance of controlled and uncontrolled madness makes this album another hit in a series of solid albums from BaN. Is it perfect? No. The ambient pieces, while used sparingly and well enough, end up detracting from the atmosphere that Nahab works so carefully to build in other more interesting ways. That being said, this album will resonate with fans of this unashamedly weird project, and whether this Disharmonium chapter closes as a duology, or we get a third album to make it a trilogy, Nahab is an album worthy of the Blut aus Nord name.
