Band:	Blut Aus Nord
Album:	777 - Cosmosophy
Style:	Industrial metal
Release date:	September 21, 2012
Guest review by:	Evil Chip

01. Epitome XIV
02. Epitome XV
03. Epitome XVI
04. Epitome XVII
05. Epitome XVIII

777 - Cosmography is without a doubt the quietest and perhaps the least challenging of the entire trilogy of Blut Aus Nord. The dissonance and abrasive wall of sound lightly vanishes and gives way to other new elements. You can expect to find electronic beats, spoken passages, apocalyptic chants, industrial machinery, clean vocals, crystal clear delayed guitars and even some little amounts of doom. Is it eclectic or heterogeneous? Hell no. It's actually a really articulated record and mostly everything is laid in its right place. Is it the best record of the trilogy? I don't know but it's a really beautiful closure. I like to think this kind of music is like seeing a movie, since the visual aspect is a really significant part while listening. In those terms the climax of this trilogy is not disturbing or creepy but rather cathartic and desolating. It's almost like a post-apocalyptic scene where you can see the whole modern world falling apart or at least the human part of it.

But then appears a major turn off: the clean vocals. Fuck, they're annoying. While at some parts they really suit the music (like Epitome XVII) they mostly ruin the whole atmosphere that the music slowly creates. The problem is that whereas the music is really flamboyant and unearthly, the vocals are really average and when they try to keep up at the same level with the music they really fail at it. It's like hanging out with a bunch of operatic fat guys with jeans and a shirt. That's the reason why some songs like "Epitome XIV" don't work with the clean vocals and others like "Epitome XVII" do.

But overall 777 - Cosmography is an excellent record with some minor problems (Clean vocals! ehem). It's like a colossal and dehumanized factory that works on its own: industrial sounds crushing over a diminished humanity, that's how big it is. While the dissonance and abrasiveness of the past records is diminished, it gives way to a new hope that takes the shape of a yearned prophecy that everyone in the world is expecting. You never see the arrival of that moment but the melancholic wait for it. Especially in songs like "Epitome XVI" and "Epitome XVII" you can perceive by reading the lyrics that moment of unfulfilled expectation. The whole world is crumbling around you and you are running through tons and tons of junk and rusty cars yet waiting and yearning looking to the sky. Alone.