Solus Grief / Altertum
I Skyggen mellom liv og død Split

Much as its title forecasts, I Skyggen mellom liv og død
brings together two Norwegian black metal entities: SOLUS GRIEF, with whom PURITY THROUGH FIRE followers should know from their two albums in as many years, and ALTERTUM; both bands' respective mainmen shared a split album, Ulf's Keptr, shared a split year with their other respective bands UNHOLY CRAFT and VORGFANG. Here, SOLUS GRIEF continue their ascent / descent with two 10-minute tracks (and joining instrumental) that see mainman Peregrinus returning to a more anguished, almost-DSBM sound that nevertheless evinces unique traits - among them, a guitar tone alternately rippling / clanging, an attention to ever-so-tense dynamics, and a superbly "live" feel for an otherwise-one-man band. It's unsurprising, then, that these three throwback-to-1995 tracks were written & recorded during this past winter. For his part, ALTERTUM mainman Lord G also wrote & recorded his four tracks here during that same winter, and it shows: a cryogenic blast of ancient northern darkness, violent and spectral in equal measure. It's not so much that these four ALTERTUM songs evoke deja vu - one can hear symphonic shades of very earliest Limbonic Art, Obtained Enslavement, and Norway's Troll as well as the rawest pulse of Hat-era Gorgoroth, the cult Kvist, and even Ulver's Nattens Madrigal - but these blizzard-blown coordinates are rearranged in such a manner that they become a new destination in itself, nostalgic and without time simultaneously. I Skyggen mellom liv og død is against the modern world!