The opener called “By Tallow Noth”1 is an ideal, 2.5 minute microcosm of the whole thing. Subtle quietness gives way to a grand organ, gradually adorned with layers of strings and a muted choir. It’s a sobering, somber marker of the album’s tone. Rolling drums gradually louden before the first blackened whirlwind storms through the track, blending oppressive heaviness and shrieks with bold violins. The extraordinary, ornate composition belies a record incorporating black metal instrumentation – tremolo-picked guitars, blast beats, harsh vox – but which isn’t truly black metal. It’s undoubtedly crushingly heavy when required. The overall feel is a bit crunchier than previously thanks to a mix that weighs marginally more towards the guitars and drums. But Bellum II is first an orchestral album, prioritizing violin melodies over the chaos and a piano over the quietness.
It’s difficult to describe just how grandiose Bellum II is. It’s grand in ambition and grand in execution. It’s divided into eight tracks as you might expect from a typical metal release, but flows more like a symphony through multiple movements. It’s always satisfying to hear a movement return to the core melodic motifs after straying the path for sometimes minutes at a time. The tracks are circular, typically concluding somewhere close to where they began, but the intervening journey sets an exciting course across varied, undulating soundscapes. The music develops so quickly and so frequently, even across the softer moments, that it’s endlessly rewarding for close listening. By comparison, you sometimes hear records that are under-developed; the songwriting is basic, the transitions rudimentary. But seamless doesn’t begin to describe how Bellum II flows between its passages, even when those passages juxtapose savage shrieks with gentle acoustic guitars and violins. And its compositions are simply immaculate, morphing into whatever the song-writing demands at any given moment. The music is stuffed full of devastating dichotomies: elegance and savagery; serenity and chaos; airiness and crunch. Aquilus subtly and assuredly transitions through all of them.
Bellum II is structured around two mammoth-sized central tracks, with shorter ones fitting around these. The closing duo called “Amidst Soughing Tristesse” and “The Pillared Dark” are both at the softer, orchestral end of the album’s musical spectrum, and close things on a powerful, mournful note. They’re relatively sparse but pack an emotional punch. By contrast, “Nigh to Her Gloam” and “My Frost-Laden Vale” each feature nearly 17 minutes of densely compacted instrumentation and orchestrations, arranged into intricate, progressive song structures. Good though they are, there’s a lot going on. I’m forced to ask myself if they’re too much; maybe too changeable or too dramatic? My conclusion after repeated listens is that too much overstates any concern. But spending more time on fewer passages might enable these tracks to sink deeper because the music here is not quite as sticky as before. Aquilus is never anything less than great, but Bellum II may be a little less exceptional than the prior two releases.
My (uniquely?) British desire to relentlessly mock any type of sincerity – which sometimes gets me into trouble with non-Brits who take me too seriously2 – should mean that I hate Aquilus. Bellum II is just as self-important, and arguably pretentious, as every other release under this name. But it’s so fucking good that I really can’t criticize it for taking itself so seriously. It’s the work of a master craftsman, immaculately composed, performed and arranged into an ornate and beautiful example of human creativity. Is Bellum II as good as other Aquilus output? Maybe not. But it will still be better than almost everything else this year.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Northern Silence Productions
Websites: aquilus.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/aquilus
Releases Worldwide: May 3rd, 2024
