Sunday 27 May 2012

FDS - Nagranie z muzyką naiwną

 
 
FDS - Nagranie z muzyką naiwną (MALIGNANT VOICES - CD 2012)
I’m not gonna deny it – this was one of the most anticipated debut albums of the recent months for me. And that’s for two reasons: first one is the fact that FDS is another project created by the ever-busy members of such killer bands as Furia, Massemord, Morowe. I really like almost everything what have been created under their banner of Let the World Burn and can admit that the creativity of Nihil, Namtar and their comrades is always very impressive. Another reason for my enthusiasm for the FDS’ first album was the fact that the first EP, which this project recorded – and that was “XII.07” from 2009, was just an amazing listening experience and one of my favourite recordings from Let the World Burn at all! Those three tracks from “XII.07” delivered a stunning piece of atmospheric black metal and left me without choice – I just had to get the next FDS release, as soon as it’s unleashed upon us.
OK, it took me some time, before I got “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną”. I focused on purchasing some other stuff at that time and whether I wanted it or not, I postponed the meeting with FDS for a couple of months. Finally I got the CD though and here it is. Well, first I need to say that I completely do not follow the stories and weird poems, combined with sort of black humour, which FDS has included on this album. Already the title of it may disgust the most orthodox black metal fanatics (the title of this album can be translated to “A Recording of the Naive Music”, which doesn’t really say much, but also do not really fits the whole black metal style, right?). But that’s the thing: “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” is not an album, which is for the orthodox black metal fans. Even the words of the album sound like a poetry of the madman or like something what has been written by someone, who just smoked opium. They often don’t make sense to me and of course the most intriguing example is the line “Ja to pierdolę i siedzę na księżycu” – “Oh, I fuck it, sitting on the moon”. Then you can look through the booklet of “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” and again will notice very untypical and almost disturbing images. What is it all about – I have no idea and honestly didn’t really want to delve into it. Not today.
But as I said – this album is not for a typical black metal maniac. This sort of music will scare them away immediately, it will make them vomit and look around in panic for a simple Darkthrone primitive copycat, to cure their fears. The musical structures on “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” are as weird as the lyrics are and well, I can honestly say that it took me a lot of listens, before I’ve found myself in this mess and started to like anything from this album. Really, on the first listen I was almost thrown away by what I got here and only when I started to discover the album I’ve found a lot of stunning moments, which is good of course, as it’s always great if the album grows in you and is not an easy piece of candy. But again, at the beginning the “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” was a real disappointment... I did expect something untypical, of course I did, because that’s what usually Let the World Burn crew is doing – they like to challenge us, the listeners, and let us taste their madness. But “XII.07” was all in all a straight forward, atmospheric black metal. “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” goes in completely different direction, crossing the lines of avant-garde metal more than once and hardly ever really gets even close to what we traditionally understand as black metal. The whole music of “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” can I guess be divided into two parts and one of them is also the one, which annoys me pretty much. I guess half of the album is some sort of weird, psychedelic music, which often has nothing to do with metal, but more with sort of anti-music, ambient or just something ultimately bizarre. There can be some sounds or whatever or just the silence, when only vocals appear – and those vocals are as lunatic and possessed as everything else on this album – from spoken parts to falsetto singing (well, even the more black metal vocals aren’t really your typical metal shrieks, they’re more on the verge of clean, deep singing and harsh voice, what sounds truly original, especially with those Polish written lyrics… but here’s a questions: what do the foreign listeners think of this style of singing, because I guess the accent and everything may sound terribly weird to them?!). Hmm, I guess you should be glad anyway if you can’t understand Polish, as the titles of the songs would make you scratch your head, thinking “what the hell does that mean??”. I do tend to think so, when looking at such titles as “Bajania zsiniałego sumienia” or “Majaki i piękno czegoś obrośniętego kurzem i pajęczyną…”. WHAT??????????
OK, I’m lost. What was I about to write? Ahh, music… Yeah. “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” is just as diverse as bizarre and many of those sounds, which appear are just twisted. And few of them I did not like. Often they’re just booooorrring and I guess “Bajania zsiniałego sumienia” will be the best (in this case it’s the worst) example for it, really. Or “Majaki i piękno czegoś obrośniętego kurzem i pajęczyną…”. I don’t really know whether they help in creating the mood of the album or rather disturb? Surely they make the whole music more diverse and unique, but at the same time it gets annoying sometimes, especially if you’re looking for more metal songwriting. And speaking of which, the black metal part of the album is I think rooted in a bit of In the Woods’ first LP and more so also in the Burzum style, from the “Filosofem” era, but still they’re not just a bare copy. At few parts they can also be closer to such bands as Altar of Plagues for instance, more than to the fundamental Scandinavian black metal, which I was delighted to hear on “XII.07”. The riffing is pretty simple, often it’s very repetitive, with just one or two motifs in the song, but they’re well arranged and composed, so despite the whole simplicity of the song structures, there’s a lot going on. And I must say that after I got more into the album, I really started to like the atmosphere, which FDS has created here. It is truly stunning and in many ways I can say it is also quite disturbing and different to what you usually get on the black metal albums. But that only works for the advantage of the band, again! Anyway, listen to such killer tracks as “I patrzymy w gwiazdy”, “Gdyby nie ta odrobina szaleństwa…” or „Trzęsienie nieba”… Damned excellent pieces!
I must say also add that I like the guitar tone a lot, really good one! Actually the whole production of “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną” is really cool, very warm, very acoustic, which is definitely great… and the only exception from that are the more digital sounding drums in “Gdyby nie ta odrobina szaleństwa…”. So, to conclude the album is not an easy task. As I already said, I was quite disappointed with it in the beginning and almost thrown away. But I survived and let myself be dragged into the possessed atmosphere of “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną”, which, when you get used to it, starts to be quite engaging and unique. So, I would seriously advice you getting the album, but I also warn you that this won’t be an easy experience, but more challenging one for sure. But definitely it is worth to listen to “Nagranie z muzyką naiwną”, as the albums stands in the front of the crowd of mediocrity for sure.
Final rate: 75/100

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