Blut Aus Nord releasing a split w/ P.H.O.B.O.S. (streams)

by Ian Chainey

‘Triunity’ cover art

Two of France’s finest black metallers are teaming up. Masters of the creepie-crawlies Blut Aus Nord and P.H.O.B.O.S. are now streaming cuts from their forthcoming split Triunity. Out through Debemur Morti Productions on June 24, the three-tracks-per-band alliance will feature unsettling art from Katarzyna Urbanek. Preorders are available now.

Blut Aus Nord’s previewed contribution is called “De Librio Arbitrio,” taking its name from the Augustine of Hippo book that dissects free will. The trio are always on the move, so it’s difficult to say anything they do is a departure, but the track does add a few new wrinkles. The beginning has a woozy grove that’s out of the Tom G. Warrior playbook, complete with singing that sounds as though it’s a Catholic mass held in purgatory. Vindsval, who Invisible Oranges interviewed in 2011, narrates the opening with a near monotone groan before switching to his scared-cat rasp. In its second half, the gnarled, Lovecraftian dissonance Blut Aus Nord are famous for recolors the track with its particular shade of black.

BaN’s wailing gale is offset by P.H.O.B.O.S.’s “Ahrimanic Impulse Victory,” a low-end subwoofer slayer of blackened industrial. P.H.O.B.O.S., the solo concern of Frédéric Sacri, operates where the Venn diagram of Godflesh and Thorns cross, recasting the former with the nihilism of the latter. Rhythms are placed atop rhythms, guitar lines atop guitar lines, until the constructed colossus finally comes crashing down.

Stream both tracks below…

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