FELL VOICES
Regnum Saturni Review

Fell Voices return with Regnum Saturni, three years after their previous full length (untitled). The ambient black metal band, once again, does what they know how to do best, bringing forth three long tracks (shortest one is about seventeen minutes long) filled with chaos and destruction. What is impressive here though is that Fell Voices do not rely on weird synth sounds (although they do have a few) and keyboards, or even many clean parts in order to sound atmospheric. Instead most of the album’s ambiance manages to come forth from the production, which achieves to retain a raw and aggressive sound but on the same time craft an atmosphere that can only be described as dystopian.

From the intro of “Flesh From Bone” with its distressing sonic qualities the band is fooling you into thinking that what will follow might not be as direct and harsh. So soon enough the black metal riffology kicks in obliterating everything in its path. In about six minutes into the song it seems like Fell Voices decide to give you a chance to breathe, slowing down to a more mid tempo moment with the wolf-howling-like black metal vocals still present, there is even a clean (well, a bit cleaner…) guitar part there before the relentless drumming resumes and you are once again lost in their horrific visions.

Of course synths are present here, acting also as intros and outros to the songs and they do help quite a bit. “Emergence” kicks in with a bass line that sounds absolutely unreal, making the listener feel always on edge, not knowing what to expect next. Tempos change through the twenty-one minutes of the second track but the bands twisted concepts retain the same energy throughout. The album finishes with the completely surreal “Dawn”, with its imposing four-minute intro that blends perfectly into the black metal basis of Fell Voices. Warped melodies and dissonance are entwined together to bring forth what is for me personally the peak of this album, an earsplitting ambient black metal opus that will satisfy any extreme music fan.

Regnum Saturni is an excellent release that binds together ambience and aggression. I cannot really think of many records that can accomplish anything similar in the same twisted way that Fell Voices have managed to get it done in Regnum Saturni.