Vampir bei Kerzenlicht – Obscure Lights Through Endless Shadow
Band: Vampir bei Kerzenlicht
Album: Obscure Lights Through Endless Shadow
Label: Nekro Morgue Productions
Release date: July 24th, 2024
Country: Romania
Format reviewed: High-Quality digital recording
Romanian black metal is somehow of a rabbit hole, with band doing hell knows what at this point, from the typical Dark Funeral induced sound of modern bands, and folk infused albums, to noisy raw black metal and various ambient happenings. One thing that you don’t find, however, is anything even remotely resembling the sound of the first wave and bestial black metal, well, at least, not until recently. Obscure Lights Through Endless Shadow by Vampir bei Kerzenlicht is the kind of album that stands out from the first track, and not without reason. Compared to much else of what is going on in the Romanian underground, it looks and sounds like completely something else. The album not only resembles the likes of Mortuary Drape, early Sodom, Mayhem’s “Deathcrush” and even Beherit to a certain extent, but it also captures that chaotic, unhinged spirit that made those bands so relevant to early black metal. It is definitely a great improvement to the band’s previous release, the “Filth, Lust and Fukking Disgust”, coming off as a much more musically mature record, while retaining that feeling of pure aggression and spite. Obscure Lights Through Endless Shadow also feels a little bit less like War metal, compared to its predecessor, leaning a bit more on its other influences, but while maintain that “wall of noise” style of sound for the most part.
The album opens up with an unsettling track titled “Intro- Hymn of Qain”, comprised out of a faint synth line and a chanting female voice. This track does a great job at creating an initial starting point for an album in terms of atmosphere, setting the mood for the carnage about to open.
The pleasantries are skipped rather soon, with the second song, “Bat Suckin’ Slut”, which offers the listener a first taste of the band’s capabilities and overall sound. The song is definitely on the short side, ranging at a little over two minutes, but it nonetheless delivers a punishing assault comprised out of a chaotic, buzzsaw guitar riff, accompanied by the Profanatica-style bass, simple, yet pummeling drums and screechy vocal performance.
Coming in up next there is “Indwelled by Satan”, which follows closely to its predecessor, although much better fleshed out than its predecessor, both due to the slightly better organized composition, and longer time span. The song maintains a rather fast tempo for its majority, although with some interesting variations going on in terms of drumming. The guitar and the bass follow each other closely, with the bass actually acting as more of a rhythm guitar, as explained by the band’s bassist, Strigoi in an interview with “Underground-ul Metal din România” (“The Romanian Metal Underground” in English). This offers the album a noticeable hint of uniqueness, and it also helps in creating that “wall of noise effect that I mentioned previously. The riffs themselves are somewhat close to what one would expect from a late First-wave band, although with a bit more of a chuggy feel. This particular song is also where we begin to see more innovation in terms of vocals, with several techniques being scattered throughout the composition.
“The Call of the First Aethyr” is a muffled spoken track that serves as a sort of interlude. It also marks a slight change in the album’s sound.
The fifth track, “Witching Maniac” is where this album starts to truly shine. A short, but much more cohesive song, “Witching Maniac” is a fast paced, black thrash inspired song that I can’t help but vibe to, due to its catchy quality and “In the Sign of Evil” flair. Compared to the songs before, the guitar song on this one is less noisy and a bit better distinguished, which helps the song stand out and it also renders it as a tad bit more accessible, but not in a bad way. It is overall a really fun song and one of my personal favourites.
Things change once again with “Evil Entity”. It is one of the longer songs on this album, and it also carries a quite strong doomy feel. It includes a variety of tempo shifts, which give sit a more complex edge, although it may be hard to follow at times, due to the contrast between the chaotic guitar work and the drumming, which is overall rather simple, without many embellishments. It is also completely instrumental, which allows the listener to pay attention more to the musical dynamics present within the song.
Coming after there is yet another muffles spoken track, “The Call of the Second Aethyr”, which marks the final “chapter” of the album. Usually I would have found this amount of interlude tracks redundant, but in the case of this album it seems to somehow work, mostly because of the way they are used to mark shifts in terms of sound and because they provide contrast with the chaos of the music itself.
“Pride’s Lustful Sin” is definitely my personal favourite song from the whole album. It has a very dark, eerie atmosphere, which is much better developed than in the rest of the record. I also like the pace of the drumming and the riffs themselves, along with the bass, create a strong sense of claustrophobia and an oppressive mood in general, without coming of as sludgy or forced. The vocals seem to get lost in the distortion of the instrumental, which gives them a really cool feel of “lurking darkness”. Towards the end the tempo seems to accelerate slightly, providing the background of the next song.
The approaching the end of the album there is “Altar of a Dying Sun” which rivals its predecessor, both in terms of mood and quality. It is more groovier and more fast paced than “Pride’s Lustful Sin”, but the music still retains that oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere, although slightly less emphasized. In terms of riffs, this song is more experimental and chaotic, and the bass also seems more muted than on previous tracks. The drumming is more intricate in contrast to the stripped down, minimalist approach observed before. The vocals remain, however, shrouded in the distortion of the instrumental, like demonic shrills in a cave.
“Outro – Eternal Devotion to Darkness” concludes the album with a chanting choir, resembling its beginning. And thus, the music comes full circle.
After the outro there are also three live recordings, from the band’s latest concert. These are a live version of “Indwelled by Satan”, and two covers, one of Nattefrost’s “Sluts of Hell”, and one of Sodom’s “Blasphemer”. These recordings, unfortunately, all suffer from shitty audio quality, which makes them much less enjoyable. The bad conditions in which the concert took place are partly to blame for this, as well as not being recorded in a “professional” way.
Rough around the edges? Yes. A bad record? No fucking way. Obscure Lights Through Endless Shadow is, from my point of view, a really exciting, and interesting record. It comes of as a fresh, energetic release that leaves you wanting more of it. It has that old school charm of the First Wave, while also including a lot of new ideas. This offers the album as a whole a unique sound, with plenty of potential. For now, all we can do is wait and see what the future will bring for VBK. But until then, go listen to this album, you will surely have an interesting experience. 9/10 by Ioanna
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