It is obligatory in every Blut Aus Nord review to comment on the band's longevity and continued intriguing creativity even more than three decades after their first releases. And that's a three-plus decade run where the band has been consistently active, even spawning some side-projects, and having their sound still stick very close to the black metal sphere they started in. The band has explored the more atmospheric side, the more industrial side, the more dissonant side, and the way they've mostly operated to be able to fully explore these sounds and set expectations for how each journey would be is by structuring a lot of their discography around trilogies.
The last time I wrote about Blut Aus Nord, albeit in a retrospective review celebrating a reviewing milestone, I mentioned how the band was in the midst of closing another trilogy (thus I used that opportunity to talk about the closing of another trilogy), referring to the Disarmonium one, which had two albums already released. You might notice that Ethereal Horizons doesn't have Disarmonium in its title and is thus not the awaited final entry in that supposed trilogy. Judging by the Memoria Vetusa one, it isn't necessarily unlike Blut Aus Nord to take a longer time to end a trilogy, but rarely have they pivoted away after two consecutive entries.
Ethereal Horizons is quite different from the previous two albums, the ones that were entries in a trilogy, while still keeping some of their qualities especially in regards to the organic sound in the production, instead having more in common with the album that preceded them, Hallucinogen, an album that took Blut Aus Nord's atmospheric black metal side into a more post-metal influenced psychedelia. Ethereal Horizons is however not part of a trilogy with that album, so there is a noticeable difference in sound in that this album's psychedelia feels more in line with both a cosmic sense, one where the psychedelia takes some cues from space rock or from other cosmic metal acts like Mesarthim or Midnight Odyssey, while also having its ethereal sense have just a touch of blackgaze.
There are touches of older Blut Aus Nord, especially with that very recognizable snarl, but what is very specific about this release is how it is tonally distinct from the bleakness that is usually associated with the band's sound. The extra layer that the synths offer, sometimes having a very 70s old electronica feel to them, sometimes feeling more in line with what's expected of atmospheric black metal, works very well in tandem with the repetition-based riffing and the post-rock inspired tremolo picking as extra additions to make the sound of Ethereal Horizons feel unique within the band's discography.
What this album's release means for the Disarmonium continuity I do not know, and I hope a trilogy closer is coming, but Ethereal Horizons is such an exciting way to show creative vitality from a band that never gave us reasons to doubt how much they still had it.
