Artist: Nubivagant / Häxenzijrkell
Country: Italy / Germany
Label: Amor Fati Productions
Formats: Split 7″ EP
Year: 2024
After having embarked on a tour together, this split 7” EP is meant to further strengthen the musical bond between both Nubivagant and Häxenzijrkell. It saw the light of day at the end of last year through both band’s musical home of Amor Fati Productions, a label to which the two of them released pretty much their entire back catalogue.
Nubivagant starts off with ‘The Gift’, a song that is both unmistakably Nubivagant as well as slightly different from what the one-man band offered before. Of course, the clean and almost angelic voice of multi-talented multi-instrumentalist Gionata “Omega” Potenti is the things that ties this song to Nubivagant’s back catalogue. Also the Traditional Doom-ridden guitars are very much recognizable. So, in fact, ‘The Gift’ has all the boxes ticked and bears Omega’s fingerprint all over. Still, this song has a bit more of an Occult Rock-vibe to it. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I am hearing resemblances with The Devil’s Blood here, but it definitely leans that direction. Plus, the guitar tone has just a slightly different texture, which allows this song to stand proudly on its own within the Nubivagant legacy.
I admit that Häxenzijrkell has never really been my favourite band. I do own a few of their releases, but they are all split releases that I basically got for the other side. With this new track the band again doesn’t really convince. With their trance inducing approach of the Black Metal genre they fit to the generation of Black Metal bands that arose along with those out of the Icelandic/Trondheim scene. Yet, the problem is that Häxenzijrkell never even scratches the surface of the brilliance of some of the best/major bands in that particular wave of Black Metal. The bellowing vocals, dissonant riffing and ritual-like drums… it’s all there, but it just doesn’t seem to go anywhere. There’s no real tension building, at least, it doesn’t lead to dynamic explosions as bands like Svartidauði, Sinmara or Misþyrming demonstrated so well around the 2010’s. Like I mentioned in the review of the Drengskapur split LP, an upward trend in quality can be observed, however, it is still miles behind.
