Addaura
Burning For The Ancient

When we struggle to describe what scares us, perhaps we can say where we are afraid. It's the forest, it's those terrible and tormented faces that appear to us between tree and tree, while the train rushes by.

They call it "Eden," but it has little of paradise. In the forest, darkness comes early, the only shelter seems to be the old wooden cabin surrounded by oaks, but you must not enter, you must stay outside, lie down in the grass, become part of it, and wait, in this state of suspension, for fear. And when it arrives, it is not as you expect it, you are not ready to accept it, although you have been taught to master your emotions. It's physical, it takes the form of a doe giving birth to a dead fawn, a fox feeding on its flesh, a tree dead inside that will no longer see other springs. You are in Nature, swimming in its realm, where everything seems made to die without reason, like the acorns falling incessantly on the wooden roof of the cabin, like the newly hatched bird that leans too far from the nest and falls, its little body torn by the ants that seemed to be waiting for it ravenously on the ground. The bird falls and dies just as it happened to your child, whose cry now seems to echo throughout the forest, almost as if to destroy your mind already on the brink of madness. It's not your child crying, it's the creatures of Nature, it's their cry that you hear, the lament of all things destined to die. When they tell you that Nature is the Church of Satan, you shiver, your rationality falters terribly, you seem almost on the verge of believing it, but then no, it can't be true, they're just tales, even the acorns don't cry, it's just your thoughts distorting reality, certainly not the other way around.

Chaos seems to reign in that small portion of the apparent paradise, which turns out to be just the tip of a pyramid where madness seems to grow exponentially, day after day, where old stories of witchcraft and heinous crimes seem to step out of books and run wild among the decaying plants. Nature, the grass, the leaves, they are not the ones to fear, it is the very Nature of humans, the disposition of man, it is the greatest and most destructive Evil, which never dies, like that cursed crow, buried yet always able to caw vigorously.

The epilogue can only be one, and the Three Beggars will reveal every truth: upon their arrival, someone will have to die, and Death, madness, and Nature will find a new reason to exist.

New bands are emerging from the black metal undergrowth that has developed, for some years now, in the U.S. region known as "Cascadia." This time we talk about Addaura, a Seattle ensemble gaining widespread recognition thanks to its latest creation, "Burning For The Ancient." Although the shadow of WITTR looms quite heavily in the musical rooms created by these guys, the result exceeds all expectations, avoiding perhaps the biggest flaw that many such groups can have, the lack of originality. Our artists enchant us with four long pieces of fast black metal, with a strongly shamanic and ritualistic structure, capable of literally hypnotizing the listener, surrounding them with musical spirals that, by design, even recall post rock (thus the same basic riff repeated and expanded as needed). All this is completed with a piercing scream that’s never too disturbing and atmospheric parentheses that perhaps dazzle more than the sonic storm that precedes or follows them.

As is customary, only LP and cassettes are available here (perhaps a CD in the future, who can say): however, this should not block the desire to listen to these guys, especially from those who have a soft spot for Wolves In The Throne Room and the scene they move in (and have indeed helped to create). Ritualistic and atmospheric, a great surprise.