Furze

UTD

Candlelight 2007

The enigma known as Furze has always been a strange case for me.  And for pretty much everyone else too I would assume.  Furze does something quite inventive by pushing the boundaries of black metal without incorporating anything but the strictest norm of what is acceptable in traditional black metal.  UTD is divided into 2 mildly different sections.  The first, known as "beneath the Odd-edge Sounds to the Twilight Contract of the Black Fascist" is the more straightforward of the two.  It is comprised of four songs that are really traditional yet are somehow quite odd in their presentation much in the same way as their debut Trident Autocrat was odd and strange yet still really traditional.  Furze has managed to incorporate the ultra thin trebly guitar riffs into a a more structured and better written structure than their other two albums.  It is kind of like an emotionally disturbed version of what you might expect from early Taake.  The second part of the album known as "The wealth of the Penetration in the Abstract Paradigmas of Satan" is a more psychedelic and trippy bent on Furze's unique style.  It's four tracks have more in common with the strange and mentally unbalanced journey's you would find on Furze's Necromanzee Cogent album yet these compositions are more controlled.  Mandragora Officinarum begins this section of the album with some high pitched yet somber guitar ramblings before bombastically drumming its way into an ice cold black metal march.  I am not a huge fan of some of the vocal trickery/experimentation that take place here though.  That is a slight and insignificant detail though.  I would musically compare the second half of the album as to what i would expect Under a Funeral Moon era Darkthrone would sound like if they were completely spaced out on Mushrooms and acid.  Frost makes an appearance on this album bashing away with his sticks. It just makes me wonder why he would stay in Satyricon when his work with all the other projects he has lent his talent to completely manage to outshine what Satyricon is currently doing.  Furze has a special place in my heart and this album only enhances my opinion of them as I think it is their most coherent and mature album to date.  Furze has been criminally underrated in my opinion but should finally manage to get some well deserved recognition with their new record deal with Candlelight.