#Alburnum 🇳🇱 Buitenlucht

Band: Alburnum
Title: Buitenlucht
Label: Babylon Doom Cult Records
Release date: 08 July 2022
Country: Netherlands
Format reviewed: High-quality digital format

Today, we are going to check out a debut album from Dutch black metal, folk, and pagan metal band, Alburnum, from the Netherlands. This is a two-person band consisting of multi-talented D.R. as lead vocals, lead guitar, bass, mandolin and accordion. Bringing up drums and back up vocals is R.v.R. (from Faceless Entity). Concept of this album was conceived on countless nature walks, and deep thought about the nature of depression. It’s an acceptance and meditation that depression is a thread that runs through all people, an acknowledgment of that, but, not a wallowing in that miasma of despair and self-hatred. Its about the idea that Winter doesn’t last forever, for Spring does come.

The album title “Buitenlucht” translates from Dutch to mean “outside air” in English. This four-track album has been noted as a similar sound to #Drudkh or #Windir, but enough about who they may or may not sound like, I’m ready to jump in and immerse myself in the melancholic savagery of this album.

The first track, “Lk Kan Niet Zien” (English translation: I can’t See), Discordance in guitars and a nearly droning style of drums, serving to punctuate that melancholic heaviness, I’d call it a relentless rhythm that speaks to the nature of depression. There is a change up in mood and style, the folk influence comes to the top notes, intermingling with the drums and guitars, bridging the two styles as one.

“Eeuwig Light” (English translation: Eternal Light), same frantic pacing of lead guitar, bass and drums, to an acoustic section, with a mandolin (if my ears don’t deceive me), it lightens the sense of heaviness that permeates this track. Leading to a harmony of voices, and this reminds me of that pagan influence I hear featured in some Viking metal bands. Tremolos carving spaces in the atmosphere that keeps building, roaring vocals, that seem to echo, this track to me is a builder. More keeps being added in.

“Buitenlucht”, (English translation: Outside Air), some stand-alone discordant guitar with a vocal scream echoing in to start this one off. This track continued on, and seemed to be a continuation of the above track. Heavier guitar, and faster delivery on drums, but to me didn’t go anywhere different than previously set out tracks.

Last track, “Fluisterend Water” (in English: Whispering Water), hearing the savagery, and power of the vocal lengthening, and encompassing the tremolos, and rapid speed drums. Bass is the underlying note and its very discernable. Some melancholic notes seep in here, a slowing of the tempo, and again that pagan influence is heard. This one is a showpiece of mood and darkness displayed in the vocal, and instruments. Track concludes on simple acoustic guitar cords, with that rhythmic tone of lifting. A departure from the drowning tremolos.

Definitely fitting into the pocket of pagan black metal, if this is your “sound” then do check Alburnum’s debut album. I give 7/10 Metal Marie

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