Hailing from the snow-covered wastes of deepest provincial Norway,
Posthum could, to all appearances, be yet another band practicing the pastoral brand of black metal dedicated to incorporating regional folk music and pagan beliefs into this once unilaterally violent and satanic music. One thing's for certain:
Venom's
Cronos,
Mantas, and
Abaddon certainly never once considered moving back to the country! But, contrary to initial assumptions,
Posthum's geographic isolation and down-to-earth philosophies, while certainly legitimate enough to justify any desire to get funky with their folky selves, doesn't literally translate into that particular black metal microcosm. Rather, the songs found on 2012's sophomore
Lights Out LP generally bring a questing creative spirit and almost subliminal avant-garde tendencies to a raw and unsophisticated black-and-roll songwriting approach that would probably do
Darkthrone proud. This distinctly under-produced aesthetic does much to evoke the windblown glaciers, rustling pines, and occasional avalanches (via über-ferocious passages) of the band's native winter wonderland, but that's as chummy as
Posthum get with woodland fawns and hobgoblins; the more mature methodology of
Agalloch and
Ulver is actually closer to the mark. Should you need further proof of all this, you may get it when
Posthum are seen visiting a city near you, on tour, rather than scavenging straw for the wicker man in Norwegian fjords, as the more romantically inclined among black metal nerds may desire. Or pick up a copy of
Lights Out to experience the band's very impressive and all too urbane interpretations of modern-day black metal. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia