Last year Terratur Possessions released ‘Smokeless Fires’, Venus Star’s sixth album, presented in an attractively designed cover. An album that ends a five-year silence of this one-man project by Atvar, otherwise known as Elemental, from bands such as Circle Of Ouroboros, Vordr, Black Stench, Verivala and Kêres. With such a expansive resume of bands, it might not be surprising that some of his projects tend to go in and out of hiatus every now and then. Yet, when he breathes new life into something, you almost know for certain it will be good. Such is definitely also the case with this heavy, bass-driven Black/Doom Metal project…
If you are generally familiar with Atvar’s musical output of the last decade and a bit, you’ll definitely know that he’s a “less is more”-kind of guy. Many, if not all, of his musical endeavours are typified in a lesser or greater form of minimalism. His musical signature is all about stripping down everything to the bare minimum and making the most out of this primal form in terms of energy and power.
That is very much also the case with Venus Star. Ever since his output with this project, some fifteen years ago, he has been pursuing a savage form of Black/Doom Metal. Not so much in the occult way of such early works of Neromantia, Barathrum, Mystifier and the likes. To me Venus Star always felt like more of a Doom Metal band with Black Metal vocals. The slow rhythms and the repetitive nature of the music reminds me much more of a bareboned sort of Reverend Bizarre than of any other Black Metal band. Yet, Atvar himself cited that he was mainly inspired by the oldest recordings of Beherit and Amorphis and the somewhat newer acts such as Ride For Revenge and Swallowed. I find it a bit difficult to fit the old Amorphis into the picture, but the other three are easy to recognize.
Regardless of whatever you’re hearing in the monotonous soundscape of ‘Smokeless Fires’, one thing is for sure: this is not the easiest piece of music to wrap your head around. While most of the Terratur Possessions material is rather modern, pretty slick and almost hipster-like Black Metal, this for sure isn’t. If you consider yourself up for the task, give it a shot.
