Finland's riff &
melody fount Rauta is not solely busy with creating new haunting
Circle of Ouroborus tunes as recent years have brough upon a spate of
crushing death metal influenced releases under the Venus Star
moniker. Granted, both full-lengths lacked something that would've
made them deserve truly hyperbolic praise, but what's sure is that
the key elements at play are always promising: murky, primitive black
doom death with deranged vocals. It's then always a question of how
much longevity a full album of this style carries, but here we have
an EP length of the very style, clocking at ten important minutes.
Nivritti Marga's
first side begins with ”Osiris Virgin”'s punching downtuned
palm-muting, stripped soundscape providing nothing but crudeness. The
guitars sound a little sharper than on the recent album Setyphorus, a
nice change to the full-length's deliberately abyssal, brooding tune.
This, instead, is pure killing. Nothing out of the ordinary really
happens on the track: it's a 100% Venus Star track that some will
loathe for its uncompromising (anti)development. Those listeners will
probably gain more from the B side song ”Strange Backwards Seeing”
which I admittedly find to be perhaps the best song from the band so
far. The kernel elements are the same, but its a slight step towards
a ritualistic Ride for Revenge esque sound, spiced with some very
tasty acoustic guitars, thanks to which the track evokes an
atmosphere unlike any other.
If I was to
introduce someone to Venus Star, Nivritti Marga would be the starting
point. It simply can not bore due to its brevity, and it showcases
the project's sound accordingly (”Osiris Virgin”), as well as
adds something new (”Strange Backwards Seeing”). The package
also includes some sweet occult artwork along with the lyrics
present. At the time of writing this I realize that my copy of the
latest tape Wild Grains & Turningheads... is still unplayed, so I
can not say with absolute certainty that this EP is the very best
moment of Venus Star's career so far, but a damn great one
nonetheless. If my memory serves, this is part one of a trilogy of seven inches, so there's a lot of expectations for the future.
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