This is the fourth album from one-man blackened doom act Mur.
Cut the Rivers Vein spends 51 minutes mixing together doom, post-metal, and black metal, with elements of folk, ambient, and drone, to great effect.
Nuanced and dark funeral doom bleeds into expressive black metal that shows influences from both the old-school and the new. Scathing second wave aggression and post-blackened resplendence meet, while turning into each other with a pure disregard for genre boundaries. Folk-tinged acoustics add melancholic atmosphere and emotive melodies. An apocalyptic post-metal Neurosis feel is apparent in some sections, whereas in others folk, drone, and ambient provide a textured canvas for mood-creation.
The songs are atmospheric and immersive, drawing the listener into a dark, avant-garde world of idiosyncratic extreme metal. The blackened soundscapes that the artist behind the band creates are rich and well-realised. The combination of brute heaviness and textured depth is balanced well, resulting in a collection of tracks that feel like a rewarding journey into the artist’s world.
Cut the Rivers Vein is an atypical release, but one that has much to explore. The promo blurb states the following bands as refence points – Bell Witch, Baroness, Bölzer, Deathspell Omega, and Neurosis – and if you combine all of these together then that’s a decent overview for Mur’s sound.
Highly recommended for underground explorers looking for something a little different in their extreme metal.
Wonderbox Metal 