Ordinul Negru - Faustian Nights

Ordinul Negru has been the artistic endeavor of Fulmineos for the past fourteen years. Based out of Romania, and having a background of work with other bands, Fulmineos has been prolific in the Romanian scene for the past decade. Faustian Nights, released this past year, is evidence of a highly evolved and focused artistic mind. Not only is the album a perfect blend of numerous styles of Black Metal, but the precision song-writing allows these styles to never overtake one another, fashioning a refined, mature, and educated record. Faustian Nights comes across as thoughtful and patented; calculated usages of black metal technique that boil over into a porridge of well-honed flavors and taste; a recipe which, passed down through generations, finally found the hands of a palate that could improve upon the original combination of ingredients.

"Ordinul Negru was a side project established in 2004," Fulmineos explains, "in order to explore the primitive raw side of black metal, merely working with analog equipment without digital processing of the sound, in the vein of old rehearsals and lo-fi albums from Moonblood, Vlad Tepes, Belketre, Ulver, Mutiilation, Infernum, but then over the years it evolved constantly... Every album has its own story, with experiments into different topics and sounds, like using keyboards, or not using them, using some old tape-delays or different rooms for reverb effect in order to enhance the atmosphere of various instruments... The new album it is certainly a good step forward, and it was received very well, it is like building bricks…the new one certainly took the reactions for the previous album and got it higher…and now because we are at the end/beginning of a new year, we saw that it was included by many publication among 2018’s best albums, which is a great praise for us. We worked for three years to craft it, so we are contempt (probably content -Orion) that the audience connects with our concept."



The consistency of the album doesn't hint at any difficulty in writing or composition the songs but apparently, the process was initially more difficult than the album lets on. "We had two previously songs composed immediately after releasing “Sorcery of Darkness” and we became a live band, but then it became very difficult due to my obsessive quest for a vision to define the album, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for me only to compose something to have to release, everything it has to make sense and to resonate through an astral vision, so I continuously scraping songs after rehearsing or playing them live as a test and then not feeling that that are part of the story…but then like it has happened in the past in an weekend I writed three songs that I felt it will become the core of the album, and then Putrid helped me out with some riffs on another song and Orthros composed also a new song, so we worked them out and began preproduction. Urmuz added his ideas over what we were doing in the preproduction phase and that was it."



When "The Apocalypse Through A Hierophant's Eye" first starts I was immediately is reminded of the opening to Candlemass' "Solitude," but I am corrected in my comparison by Fulmineos himself. "I was never a fan of Candlemass, in fact I don’t think I know any song from them, sorry…not a big fan of heavy doom metal." The style portrayed here includes the classic traditional second wave and more modern black metal sound to the bass heavy influence of the geographically local Polish scene which I've covered here in bands like Furia and Gorcyz. But the melodic movements are very Doom-esque or even Greek. Perhaps the single best comparison would be Primordial circa The Gathering Wilderness. There is also a stylistic connection to Negura Bunget. I'm not surprised at this. Fulmineos deciphers the mixture of influences with some additional surprises thrown in, "I saw many times described in reviews that we are influenced by the second wave of black metal, especially from Norway and for me it’s a surprise, because it’s not the case, or maybe unconsciously from our background with what we grew up... I would say that the “modern’ production and sounds of  Satyricon, Ulver, Behemoth, Wolves in the Throne Room, Mgla, Chelsea Wolfe, Nachtmystium, Woodkid, Radiohead, Marilyn Manson, Deathspell Omega are what inspires us today."

The production, handled by a bevy of talented individuals, really brings home all the layers of instrumentation, "It was produced in two environments, DSPro studios were we recorded guitars and vocals with our friend Attila Lukinich and in Consonance Studios where our drummer, Putrid recorded the rest of the instruments, mixed and mastered the material; we preferred to do everything in-house because we are very hectic about our sound, so it was important the translation of our ideas to be as accurate as possible into the final product." Production and Mastering was partly led by Edmond Karban and Cristian Popescu, otherwise known as Hupogrammos and Sol Faur of Negura Bunget. The two are responsible for a large portion of the production, mixing, and mastering. It's nice to have friends like these. "We grew up in the same neighborhood of Timisoara, so we know each other since childhood when we discovered music and that’s how everybody connected in the late 80s/early 90s so we always were passionate about music, trips into nature or at  music festivals…these days Putrid plays with them in Dordeduh and most of his recording stuff is in their studio, so it’s a natural and normal relation of collaboration, they have good experience and they helped or were involved since the beginning of my “official “musical journey in 1997 when I released the first demo with Argus Megere. We worked on many albums together, I have learned many things from them and it’s good to have them around helping out in studio or even in live environment."

There are some interesting additions to the contemporary black metal arrangement as well. Cari Tibor offers piano parts to "Sol Omnia Regit". Karban also adds an important layer to the final title track, "Faustian Nights" with his tulnic playing, an irrevocably Romanian inclusion that helps generate the epic atmosphere on this track. It all creates a multitude of emotive ascents and descents across the songs which give the record an expansive feel. For me, it's difficult to find black metal done so well. "I love this evocative style of music, I am not a big fan of “all albums” from a band, but I like astral hours in an album or a song, moments that chills you out so maybe that is the reason that we compose lines like that…but as I have said I think the nowadays black metal it didn’t lost the ability to write good songs…these days I hear all around me "Come unto me Barzabel” chants or guitar lines from “Exercises in Futility” or a stellar drum sound from Frost on  “Deep Calleth upon Deep” and the examples are many…"



Lyrically, the album is as interesting as it is musically. There doesn't seem to be a running concept through the album, but rather a focus on cosmic and occult metaphors. "There is a central theme in the lyrics of the “Faustian Nights” but it not a conceptual album, it’s about the hidden meaning and symbols, the path that we want to follow and about inspiration characters, deities or events that makes us a part of this universe and balance our existence." My favorite couple lines of lyrics are "All alone on my own path, in twilight's even I wander..." from "Approaching The Door of Damnation" and "The past becomes the light to follow the flame, and the spirit to barricade the beauty inside." To me, these songs speak towards inner reflection and strength. "The first line was written by S (our former vocalist) but I can say that both of this extracts transpose the reader/listener into something that is beyond ordinary everyday life, it’s something personal…like in a way black metal was defined, as individualism and a misanthropic system in quest for defining a way of life."

Faustian Nights plays out over the course of it's run-time with ease and a sense of itself that is rare. At times intense, calm, proud, miserable it encompasses a swath of emotions and attitude. Often, bands focus and execute one or two emotions strongly but to flawlessly swirl so much into a single album is masterful. It's difficult for me to pick a favorite track on Faustian Nights, as there are so many moving phrasings and movements. Perhaps the best moment of the album though is the huge bass / drum interplay in "Killing Tristan". Top notch black metal from the heart of the Romanian scene. Fulmineos, Urmuz, Orthros, and Pudrid's efforts here will be getting a ton of play from me for the foreseeable future. This is a perfect jumping off point into numerous musicians and bands worth investigating but I'm going to be focusing on the rest of Ordinul Negru's discography first.