Description

Norway’s Fleurety rarely get mentioned in the same breath as Darkthrone or Mayhem, but trace their origins back to the first seeds of Norwegian Black Metal. Founding members Svein Egil Hatlevik and Alexander Nordgaren united in 1991 and released their first demo, Black Snow, in 1993. Their first full length album, Min Tid Skal Komme, was released in 1995 and it was followed by Department Of Apocalyptic Affairs in 2000. After that it would take 17 years before the world saw a new album from the band. Going back to their 2000 album and a time when Fleurety collected a huge cast of guest musicians to flesh out their songs. But, instead of a bunch of slick studio session cats, the list of contributors here is a bit more motley, including Hellhammer and Maniac of Mayhem, Carl-Michael Elde of Ved Buens Ende, Carl August Tidemann, Einar Sjurso of Beyond Dawn, Knut Magne Valle and Sverd of Arcturus, and Tore Ylvisaker and G. Playa (aka Garm) of Ulver — plus three separate female vocalists, a saxophonist, and more. With that out of the way, it’s important to note that this isn’t some all-star black metal get-together. This is very much Fleurety’s (aka Alexander Nordgaren and Svein Egil Hatlevik) show — there are some similarities to late-90s works by Ulver and Arcturus in terms of how they mix trip-hop and other electronic elements with metal guitars and so forth, but Fleurety manages to out-weird even those groups. What’s unusual here is not just the broad range of sounds and styles at work — which also include jazz vocals and saxophones, death metal growls, circus horns, some industrial textures, and a few nods to Frank Zappa and other art rockers — but also how these elements are put together. Some of the transitions are downright jarring, such as the part during Facets 2.0 where the song abruptly switches from an industrial metal-type section to a disjointed circus waltz. The vocal melodies also take some unsettling turns (see the end of Shotgun Blast); presumably this is a result of some type of contemporary classical influence, although it’s hard to pin down. Tie it all together with a pervasive espionage/intelligence mission vibe (reinforced by the dossier-like packaging) and an oddly dry-sounding production job, and you have an album that sounds like no other. Whether it works is not always easy to reduce to a “yes” or “no,”. Avantgarde, trip-hop and experimental as hell makes it a hard disc to digest. Listeners who have been fed a steady diet of the likes of Mr. Bungle, Portishead, Ulver, and Arcturus will have some fun trying to figure it all out

Track list:
1. Exterminators
2. Face In A Fever
3. Shotgun Blast
4. Fingerprint
5. Facets 2.0
6. Last-Minute Lies
7. Barb Wire Smile (Snap Ant Version)
8. Untitled (Face In A Fever-radio edit)