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If
Negura Bunget is the best black metal band on the planet
then my name is Clark fucking Kent. And I say this
because somewhere I read that. It was a subjective
sentence nevertheless, written by either the label or
the cats in charge of doing PR for Negura Bunget. This
is a good band, don’t get me wrong. They entertain, they
can play. They cover a lot of ground and to top that
like a cherry on a cake, are prolific enough to make us
believe that they can write quality music with the ease
that a man with diarrhea shits green.
2010 is then
shaping up to be the year of Negura Bunget, as they are
dropping two records, Virstele Pamintului and Maiestrit
in the same year. That, plus the hype that only a
sentence like ‘the best black metal band on the planet’
can create is sure to make of 2010, the year of Romanian
black metal. But come on, ‘the best black metal band on
the planet’, my ass. That’s an impossible assessment. A
ludicrous statement. An unmeasurable accomplishment. If
only, because no one, and I mean no one, deserves such
accolades, kudos, titles.
I read a
lot. Maybe too much. I am a skeptic so I’d like to believe that
I am not affected by the opinions of others. Still, anyone who
is as submersed in metal press as much as me will have find it
impossible to avoid the accolades received by Negura Bunget in
the past. I’ll be the first to say that they deserve each and
every single one of them. As anyone who has been a willing
witness to any of their recordings can attest; their black metal
ain’t no joke. It is in fact, serious fucking business. Most
other bands being as ambitious as these Transylvanian charmers
usually come off like an off colour joke, a pathetic project
that never should have gotten off the bedroom stage. I myself,
typically run away from the likes of Negura Bunget. After all,
their well-arranged horn polishing doesn’t bode well with my
taste for imperfection. That’s where Negura Bunget rises
mightily over the rest. Their folksy metallic sound is grand,
their songs may even include mandolins and xylophones, but
cheese-friendly it is not.
‘Cause man
if you are in search of the necrotic, here you will find only
moments of bliss. If you can pick apart those, highlight them
and cherish them like a zoophiliac does sheep, then you may
enjoy the scorching riffs and blast beats in “Chei de Roua”
without feeling obstructed by those iffy melodic folksy vocals.
The song in question is musically adept and brilliantly arranged
and packs quite the range in every possible way.
Negura Bunget
have a way with music, you see. They can overload their tunes
with instruments, roll three different types of vocals, include
a dozen of acoustic guitars, have three dudes blow on them
pipes, all interspersed between killer moments of exhilarating
black metal and still, through all of these, the music does not
feel overblown and ridiculous. That alone, is an accomplishment
onto itself. And if you are able to pick the purity of THE black
metal, then you are in for a real treat.
Official Site
MySpace
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