NSBM cannot deliver what it promises. A listener must be either easily satisfied by symbols or oblivious to their own culture, whose most threatening, offensive, and confident components NSBM purports to represent. If this music is supposed to be a potent manifestation of said culture, then we can only repeat after Nietzsche, that what already trembles should be further pushed.
Kaevum is already a fairly established name and without a doubt one of the best from the newer generation of bands considered, rightfully or not, NSBM. Lengthy songs on Ultra slowly envelop the listener by developing in a linear manner. Succeeding riffs do not feel unrelated to those preceeding them, but nor do they offer alternative directions. The contrasting parts and their variations share a logic that unites them in momentum and little else.
Melodies are not constructed and presented in the most rigid, basic manner as is common in this genre. Bass adds another dimension to echoing and distant guitars. The entire formula is actually very refined; it is quality and effort through and through, but musical themes are very broad and in fact perhaps too much so to make firm statements. It is a modern music made by progressive, open-minded individuals. And yet this whole breadth remains limited to a certain plane, which makes it seem to be lacking a certain internal dynamic in spite of relatively developed songwriting.
In every aspect of this music, an undercurrent of self-destruction permeates, a sort of pre-existing condition which condemns musicians to self-sabotage every effort on their part from the onset. Suffused by apathy and crushing despair, the riffs, despite being fairly sophisticated and interestingly laid, achieve monotony of most tried and tired chord progressions with low tension between them, reproducing moods which should be alien to this genre. If one would attempt to conceptualize the gestalt of this music it would often resemble a mellowed out rock or post-hardcore more than anything metal.
And when a familiar impulse, impossible to mistake, so firmly it is rooted in the – fuck it! – Aryan soul finally sets in for a moment, it is only for a rather dissapointing realisation that what is being heard is actually a tribute to Burzum or Darkthrone (or is it just the blood and tradition?) which is then squandered in the inconsequential, bereft of the same depth or that unyelding, archetypal quality.
Creative and intense, yet somewhat broken vocals betrays inconsistent emotionality further, thus any claim to power, beauty or even hatred ends up as unconvincing. Due to swathes of material being confused or featureless in terms of its most important focal points, when the album ends it seems hard to accept that really that is all there is to it. Overall though, it leaves this very wrong impression of ambivalence and frailty.
For a brief reference of cultural power of original black metal, one must look no further than to the pitiful caveats in which normies have to wrap, to a point of suppression, their attraction to music made thirty-five years ago by one racist Scandinavian kid. This influence is now felt even throughout what is basically a first musical choice for those in opposition to the ideas of black metal, namely punk music. Is the direction in which Kaevum is taking the legacy of their compatriots capable of such thing? And why not want to create music solely of such magnitude?
Black metal once provided us with genuine cultural ammunition. Not being overtly political, nor meant just to lift up the spirit of forsaken and destitute right, nor to merely provide just some content to fill the cultural demand. Instead it was able to point us to one authentic stream within ourselves, following which would also lead to views about things outside of the individual. However, as black metal lost its unique ability to tap into the unconditioned essence of nation’s soul, its fatalism and inhumanism, which once allowed to view the world from an unprecedented and outsider perspective, stopped being an asset.
Right now it seems that the whole flirtation of Right-wing identitarian music with black metal is over because ultimately the latter turns out to be a whole lot of degeneracy and not much else. Its current direction, even of those who are the most dedicated, radical, and militant, such as Kaevum, unfortunately still sounds too much like something to quietly put the Nordic-Germanic race to rest, not restore it.
Tags: Black Metal, kaveum, nsbm
