Band:	Furia
Album:	Martwa Polska Jesień
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	April 2007
Guest review by:	BetulaObscura

01. Nade Mną Mgła
02. Dzień Czarny, Noc Czarna
03. Krew W Kolorze Bursztynu
04. Ślepych Dzień
05. Na Ciele Swym Historię Mą Piszę
06. Idzie Zima

I was checking some info abut Furia, the band behind Martwa Polska Jesień, and... One of the best black metal albums has no review on Metal Storm?! Seriously? Time to change it!

I bet if any Finnish, German or Norwegian modern metal band could create such a masterpiece, many music critics would say that now we are looking at the new star of the scene and rebirth of the whole genre. But lucky or not for the so-called "music industry", this is a band from far-flung Poland, where Arctic bears and pagan people wander on the forest roads... so there is no such hype! Lucky there is only music! And this music stands for itself like a monolith!

Sometimes it is hard to begin writing about a masterpiece without getting into triviality. Yes, this album is amazing in every aspect. It's as simple as that. Go buy it straight away and then listen to it! Support the band! The CD is really nicely printed as a digipak with attention to every detail. Pagan Records did a good job on this. This is how a CD should be released and produced. A work of art!

But somebody could ask: just another perfect black metal album like thousands before! What is so fantastic about it?

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Polish lyrics. They stand by themselves as good, dark poetry. Try to read them (if you know Polish) without listening to the music and you will get another sinister and gloomy picture. They come from charcoal, misty surroundings, (almost dead) autumnal forests... and a dark mind and soul. They are not a cheap and predictable addition to the music, like "hail Satan balls" repeated 1000 times per minute. They actually add another value to the music. Reading and listening to them is a pleasure, a literary journey. Polish sounds are much different (obviously! ha-ha) from English or Norwegian lyrics, which makes this album more chaotic so to speak, more Slavic, more occult, more magical, more ritual and primeval.. If you are not familiar with Polish vocabulary and language, you should definitely check it. It is different in the most positive ways. I bet you will enjoy it.

OK, besides dark, depressive, melancholic lyrics - what else?

Well, we have great black metal music. It is not entirely typical, one-tempo blastbeat black metal. It has nicely sophisticated bass lines, changes of tempo, some unusual rhythms. Same with the vocals: there is not predictable screaming throughout the entire album; there is a variety of screams, from classic black metal furious higher screams to lower growls. Sometimes they become really emotive, but not in the way of ridiculous "emo" stuff. They are expressing a variety of emotions, souls staring deeply veiled into the mist. The drums are perfectly suited. With changing tempos and interesting arrangements they really add some quality to the music. On this record, the drummer is not a simply beat machine.

Listening to this album makes me think that many so-called black metal classics from the Norwegian scene are not as good as I thought many years ago. Sure, many of them are considered groundbreaking and they are still milestones, that is for sure. But listening to bands like Furia, I clearly realize that in many cases the students become better than the teachers.

The album has very good production, which is further evidence that crappy production itself does not make a good black metal album (and it does not make it more underground). I would repeat it over and over, again and again! Listening to this album is a real musical pleasure. The bass... ah, the bass is clearly audible here and adds some more brutality to the music. Sorry, "thin production" admirers, but making an album on dad's stereo has no such impact.

To sum it up:
One of the best...
Milestone...
Classic...