Artist: Urfaust
Country: The Netherlands
Label: Ván Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2023
Ever since their inception in 2003, Urfaust has been the most unique entity within the Dutch Black Metal scene – which, on its own, can already be regarded as highly creative and versatile, and let’s not forget to mention quite prolific too. Yet, as with so many local scenes, the majority of the bands the from the Low Lands were helmed by only a reasonably limited amount of people. Musicians who proved to have visionary musical ideas and clearly had the capacity of pushing the boundaries of the genre into whole new territories, to reach for new horizons and fulfilling previously unknown needs. Urfaust has not only been a band that took obvious influences from other genres, but made them an integral part of their core and managed to built a certain cult out of their bleak Black Metal base which they colourfully enhanced into something that since has never been equalled.
With ‘Untergang’, the band’s seventh full-length album, Urfaust is presenting its swansong. The ever-consistent duo behind the band decided that they have done what they needed to do. So, as of 2023, two decades after their outset, the spirit of Urfaust has been carried to its grave with ‘Untergang’ as its final coffin.
Over the past twenty years the band has undergone some musical changes, but largely kept their musical core intact. The bleakness of the music always resonated in each of their albums, but gradually the music became more atmospheric with a large portion of its identity being reserved for spacey, avant-garde ambiental passages. But whether you listen to the very first, and admittedly, rougher recordings to the later outings, the repetitive and hypnotic character of the music is beyond staggering.
‘Untergang’ seems to be a perfect closing chapter for a book that has been a mesmerizing ride, from the very first pages. Whether intentional or not, this final episode sounds like a blend of all previous stages of the band. While tracks like ‘Reliquienstaub’ and ‘Atomtod’ are a droning continuation of the more experimental and avant-garde side of the band, it is tracks like ‘Leere’ and especially the closing ‘Abgrund’ that harkens back to the very basics of the band. It is in these tracks that you can hear the strong Isengard influence that echoed so greatly in a track like ‘Drudenfuß’ from the band’s 2004 ‘Geist Ist Teufel’ debut album. Although the quality of the recording has been upgraded quite a bit since ‘Geist Ist Teufel’, it really is a lot less polished when compared to the last few albums, which makes ‘Untergang’ a perfect closing exercise. After a few listens, it cannot be said that ‘Untergang’ is the band’s greatest feat, but Urfaust always remains a unique experience. The razor-sharp and ever-repeating riffs, the almost warm sound and the unique voice of Willem ‘IX’ Niemarkt are once again of unparalleled beauty.
It might be something you can say about art in general, but for Urfaust in particular, this is something you really have to experience and undergo and, above all, not want to read (or write) too much about. It is the repetitive nature of such tracks as ‘Abgrund’ that got me, and many with me, hooked to Urfaust, the desolate and dreary Black Metal, with its monochromatic orientation and those unique blaring vocals seem to be forever stuck in our mutual Black Metal DNA. It has always been hard to listen impassively to Urfaust, but after the umpteenth listen to ‘Untergang’ it is just sheerly impossible to not to feel the slightest hint of melancholy with the dying tones of ‘Abgrund’…
