Band:	Vuur & Zijde
Album:	Boezem
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Post-metal
Release date:	July 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. Onbemind
02. Zusterzon
03. Ús
04. Omheind
05. Kuier
06. II
07. Nest
08. Adem
09. Naakt

The Dutch black metal scene of the past decade has had many moments that veer away from the black metal core, and now members of various bands joined to create a very unique brand of post-black metal.

This one is a release that I've been anticipating for quite some time because Vuur & Zijde is a name I've initially encountered because of their split with Impavida, and though I was initially only familiar with the latter, it's the former that made the biggest impact on me. Firstly because I checked the band's lineup, and though the scene is incestuous enough have connections to a lot of bands through just a couple of members, Vuur & Zijde boasts having 2/3 of Laster, Terzij De Horde's drummer, and since the split they've also been joined by Witte Wieven's mainwoman on guitars, with only the vocalist having no known lineup connections. But more than that, their side in the split provided some unique ways of making ethereal black metal, and now the proof of concept of those 15 minutes of music gets expanded and tweaked in the 45 minutes of Boezem.

Calling this black metal first and foremost seems to come mostly from the fact that the band emerged from the Dutch black metal scene, and even if there's a very significant black metal element in the sound, there's a lot of Boezem that deviates from that enough that I'd consider having another genre as the one I'd call the main one. Which one to choose though, that's quite a challenge. First, Famke's vocals are always clean, but they're also not ethereal enough to come too close to dream pop / shoegaze, sounding more akin to a slightly doom-ish ethereal wave / gothic rock. The black metal element has a strong presence in some of the song, either through some icy riffing or through blast beat-heavy drumming, but a lot of the times it's more of a blackened edge to the more post-focused music.

And when I say post-focused I don't necessarily mean just "post-metal", because even if Boezem is clearly a metal album, a lot of its goth rock tinges also come close to the genre's origins in post-punk (think Siouxsie or Bauhaus), with some of its angular dissonant riffing and drumming patterns somehow finding common DNA with the black metal. The goth rock also often finds tinges to a more expansive ethereal wave sound, with some very clear nods to Dead Can Dance's gothier early stuff or something like Lycia, sometimes injecting just enough wall-of-sound shoegaze to bring Cocteau Twins to mind. The difficulty in picking any dominant genre also comes because of how the band infused each song with its own personality and genre mix, with "Onbemind" more black metal, "Ús" having a Wolvennest-like psychedelia, "Kuier" more gothic ethereal wave, "II" some with a touch of shoegaze-y darkwave, and so on.

Genre versatility aside, Boezem is more about how Vuur & Zijde manage to create compelling song with immersive atmospheres and dark melodies, but I can't deny that I'm glad they do it while also showcasing that genre versatility.