De Magia Veterum – Migdal Bavel

Releasedate: June 2009; Label: Transcendental Creations
By: Sabine van Gameren

De Magia Veterum makes Avant-garde black Metal. Their origin is Dutch and they released their second full length album “Migdal Bavel”.

This year there were quite some interesting releases when it comes to the avant-garde Black Metal. Blut Aus Nord (click) brought one of my favorites of this year, but on my desk appears a release from De Magia Veterum from The Netherlands. This project of Mories: Everything, also known from various other projects, started in 2003 and had their debut out on 2005. “Migdak Bavel”, their latest release brings a 37 minutes lasting piece of chaos, just as described. As to mention what comes forward first on the album it must be drums who are more dominant than I would have expected. When listening a bit further, the melody comes more in sight and the balance comes more to a level where vocals and instruments give each other more space. Distortion is all over the album and it brings an atmosphere of being very destructive. What interested me most in this album is the game of dominance. Every now and then, there is an instrument that breaks out of the structure in order to show off, but in the end it gets called back by the rest. This constant pushing and pulling from the elements makes it technical very interesting, an album to pick up for those who can handle it’s complicated structure.

Links:
De Magia Veterum MySpace