The Pitch: "A new dawn is approaching. UK's Barshasketh and Poland's Outre join forces to release Sein / Zeit... via Third Eye Temple and Blut & Eisen Prod. This conceptual split takes inspiration from the work of Martin Heidegger['s]... Sein & Zeit (“Being and Time”). This seminal philosophical text, which attempts to get to grips with the meaning of being, provides the basis for an exploration of fundamental questions that underpin our understanding of human existence, with each band taking one of the two main themes."
What I Like: "SEIN (Being)" by Barshasketh concerns creating one’s own purpose in a world without any objective truth or meaning. It deals with the process of pushing further and further inward to discover true will, sacrificing solace and unnecessary comforts along the way." This is my favorite track on the album, and the themes are well-reflected sonically. The music truly feels as if it is burrowing ever inward, similar to tomorrow's look at Ignis Haereticum. The roaring tremolos and blastbeats spiral through the chaos of the pysche, all the while finding (and creating) new order and abandoning all that which is inconsequential. The pacing leads to some powerful crescendos over its nearly 8 minute duration, and the vocals are absolutely wrretched.
"ZEIT (Time) by Outre explains that the Now, the Past and the Future are all one. We exist in one consolidated frame of past events and future points that are about to become. Our Being is expressed through the time that flows through us. No one was and no one shall be. We are temporary." This is a more difficult concept to grasp since we tend to percieve time more linearly, but there is something about Outre's music that rings true with these words. I've always been a fan of those dissonant, bending chords they toss into their music, and here they evoke a certain temporal distortion. If nothing else, their nihilistic attidue and rebellious tone certainly drive home the final point of impermanence. Everything we know will one day be gone. Sounds dark, but it's also liberating is small doses.
Critiques: It's a short EP at just three songs (the last one is an Armagedda cover). I could have used maybe one more, but as you can see there is a lot to take in conceptually despite (or perhaps because of) the brevity.
The Verdict: Sein / Zeit is a brief but enticing EP with two very talented black metal groups at the helm. Each delivers an interesting half of the concept with a different approach while complimenting one another in the process. Great stuff.
Flight's Fav's: Sein
-Review by FlightOfIcarus
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