Vintersorg

The Focusing Blur (Napalm/SPV)
by Martin Popoff

The wise and bookish sage of progressive blackness has crafted his most complicated album yet, both musically and lyrically. On the intellectual front, The Focusing Blur is about man and his relation to natural forces, and how through learning and every other form of advancement, the blur that is the perplexity of nature, focuses, by measures. Musically, Vintersorg still incorporates back-to-nature lyrics through the use of medieval, folky passages. Besides that component, we get pure prog (with the man’s appropriately reedy clean vocals), Peccatum-styled terror prog, occasional blasting blackness, and crank vocal unsurprisingly o’er that. Industrial elements, avant garde doom ‘n’ Goth, and soundtracky bits complete the kitchen sink, resulting in a bewildering, challenging treatise with chapters like “A Sphere in a Sphere? (To Infinity),” “The Thesises Seasons,” and “Epilogue Metalogue – Sharpen Your Mind Tools” smacking you upside the textbook as the (mystery) band trundle through passage after passage of exotic inkiness. It’s all very jagged, dark, eerie and serious, but it’s also impressively important.
(www.napalmrecords.com)