Review Summary: Blut Aus New York
Yellow Eyes exist on black metal hallowed ground. They are both clandestine and celebrated, reaping the benefits of being the ingenue of an open secret. Since 2015’s
Sick With Bloom the band has found increasing success by offering a distinctly American take on European black metal. With each cold, dense slab the band has sharpened their approach by folding in equal parts dissonance and melody. It’s been a revelation, watching one of the premier American black metal bands quietly grow into an international force. But with
Rare Field Ceiling, Yellow Eyes set down their roots.
Rare Field Ceiling, as was 2017’s
Immersion Trench Reverie, is a deep cut of unambiguous black metal, calling to mind Blut Aus Nord’s exquisite
Memoria Vetusta III. The riffs slice like a bullet train--narrow and focused, providing the purest modern black metal experience. In this way, the album is technical perfection. The boilerplate “No Dust” belies a toe-tapping cadence while the aggressive title track offers some incredible and contorted second-wave callbacks. It’s all very blackened--eagerly staving off genre-bending by offering a full-fat sound. It’s refreshing, much in the way Murg and those in the Iceland scene challenge conventions by challenging nothing. Where drummer M. Rekevics’ other band, Vanum, fasten doom and progressive metal into their sound, Yellow Eyes gleefully remain steadfast.
While Yellow Eyes retreat further into a dark singularity, one can’t help but wonder--what’s next? With
Rare Field Cieling, the band has achieved a perfection of sorts, despite making any measurable alterations to their already accomplished sound. But at a time where black metal blurs genre lines to near-nothingness one also has to wonder--does it matter?
