It’s a curious spelling but when you realise that Yerûŝelem is the new project of Vindsval and W.D. Feld, high priests of French dark experimentalists Blut Aus Nord, nothing else is expected. As mystical as they are, and as profoundly dramatic and volatile as the city which gives the band its name, debut album The Sublime (Debemur Morti Productions) is both an enthralling and a nerve-tingling experience.
It’s an atmospheric excursion beginning with the post-led title track, icy blasts from the tundra bookending shimmering shards of emotional lead guitar and melodic chants. The ensuing ‘Autoimmunity’ is a nastier beast: the leads more angular, the whole a more Industrial vibe with Broadrick-like intonations. This carries into the clashing, resonant ‘Eternal’, a sparkling emanation of Killing Joke-influenced angst which is as euphoric as it is chilling.
The retention of BAN’s piercing edge to add salt into the more melodious ingredients is both comforting and exciting, but the album produces moments of beauty also, with the haunting ‘Sound Over Matter’ and eerie closer ‘Textures Of Silence’ as moving as they are brief.
These moments complement hostile, apocalyptic tracks like ‘Joyless’ surprisingly well, as though such disparate entities have always belonged together. ‘Triiiunity’, meanwhile, marries truly bone-shaking strings with Dub beats and droning voices in a manifestation of Khost’s dystopian noise.
The shrieking, stabbing guitars and rhythmic pressure of ‘Babel’ produce the tense effect one would expect: the beat groovy yet pounding, the vocal hollers akin to the protesting yells from Purgatory. This is maintained through the sampled beats of ‘Reverso’, where growling rhythm guitars create a swirling bedrock of chaos as the claustrophobic pulses grow louder.
Any album featuring these two long-time cohorts is likely to challenge the listener and The Sublime doesn’t disappoint. At thirty-five minutes long, its relative brevity could have diminished the impact but the intensity of the material ensures that Yerûŝelem is more than capable of adding to the protagonists’ pedigree.
8 / 10
PAUL QUINN