AN NCS PREMIERE: DRAUGNIM: “A PASSAGE IN FIRE”

 

Although we don’t often write about trailers for albums that include mere snippets of music when there are so many complete songs and albums to spread around, we made an exception last month for the teaser reel for Draugnim‘s new album, Vulturine. In addition to the eye-catching visuals, even the brief excerpt of music in the video was arresting. And now, in cooperation with Debemur Morti Productions, we have the good fortune of bringing you the premiere of a complete song from the album: “A Passage In Fire“.

Vulturine comes six years after this Finnish pagan metal band’s last album, Horizons Low. In a career that began in the late ’90s, the band’s three core members have remained the same — Morior (composing, guitars), Chimedra (vocals, lyrics), and Turms (bass, lyrics) — and their experience, talent, and persistence have produced an album that has definitely been worth the wait.

 

 

While the lyrical content of Vulturine reveals a near-nihilistic perspective on the future, dealing with such themes as decay, corruption, despair, and death, and the futility of struggle against humankind’s curses, the music in “A Passage In Fire” is impassioned and inspiring.

The rumbling thunder of the bass and the manic rush of the drums could be the sound of a cavalry charge, the guitar and keyboard melody surging and soaring like battle flags waving defiantly in the midst of the hurtling stampede, or perhaps like the passage of windswept clouds in a sparkling sky — and the jagged vocals are just as full of blood-pumping passion as the song’s epic but aching melody.

The song has an aura of grandeur and majesty, yet with an undercurrent which suggests that loss rather than triumph lies ahead. Even hearts that have turned cold as stone could not fail to be moved by it.

 

Vulturine features cover art created by Cold Poison (Acherontas, Nightbringer, Ofermod) and it will be available on March 11 via Debemur Morti on CD, 12″ LP, and as a digital download. Here’s the track list:

1. That Name Is Hate
2. As In Hunger, So In Demise
3. A Passage In Fire
4. Grief Unsung
5. Drums Of Black Death
6. Serpent Stone

To pre-order, explore the options via these links:

https://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/vulturine
http://www.debemur-morti.com/en/257-draugnim-discography

https://www.facebook.com/Draugnim-6222303077/

 

P.S. To hear another song from the new album — which premiered at Stereogum with an enthusiastic introduction by Aaron Lariviere that also (coincidentally!) makes reference to a cavalry charge, go HERE.