1349 – Revelations of the Black Flame

1349 is one of my favorite black metal bands, and that’s especially notable due to the fact that they’ve only been active in the 2000′s. Blending sinister harmonies, odd guitar rhythm and extremely fast drumming with a raw sound has been their recipe, and it’s worked extremely well. Their three previous albums, Liberation (2003), Beyond the Apocalypse (2004) and Hellfire (2005), were very similar in style, and I consider them all equally great.

Now, four years after Hellfire, Revelations of the Black Flame comes out, and those years really transcends onto the album itself. For this new album, the pace has been significantly slowed down, there are more ambient parts than black metal parts, and the style as a whole has changed a whole lot. The vocals are the same as before, the guitars sound somewhat deeper and have more reverb, the drumming is slower and the music itself is much more atmospheric. At times, it reminds me of Sunn O))), with the churning background noises and minimalist instrumentals.

It is, in short, quite different from their previous endeavors. And while there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, does it work for them?

Revelations of the Black Flame deviates from what made 1349 so unique, and it suffers for that as the band can’t seem to do anything very captivating with this new style of theirs. It feels very much watered down, and in general sounds much more like “every other” modern black metal band. This isn’t helped by the fact that the two or three black metal parts of the album more or less consist of two different 4/4 riffs alternating – compare that to 1349′s earlier works, where you should be given a medal if you were able to tap the rhythm.

The ambient bits help a bit, and there’s a couple of memorable parts (like the piano bit and the part with the bass riff), but it doesn’t help much when the rest of the album sounds uninspired and generic. This, of course, is an exagarration, I’m picky and spoilt when it comes to music, but that really is how I feel, comparing it to their past albums. On its own, it’s probably a good and quite special work of music, but being familiar with the black metal scene, you’ll probably be able to hear the riffs that have been used by other bands before.

I commend them for trying something new, but I can’t help feeling that this new style doesn’t quite fit them. I think the idea they had was good, and I’d really like to hear an album where they do the ambient stuff along with their old, fast-paced, brutal style. For now, this album stands out to me as mediocre.

It’s a bit of a shame that I’ll have to add 1349 to the list of bands to which I have to say “I like their older stuff better” , but life goes on.