I love finding obscure Black Metal bands with little to no information about the band available on the web. I believe they are a duo from Germany...or perhaps a one-man band. They have about 1000 Facebook followers, but no comments on their Bandcamp page. "Transparent to the World" is their debut release, and contains six tracks. The interesting album cover might hold a key to their uniqueness...it looks like a creature that is part human heart, and part octopus.

"The Strength of a Woman can be Boundless" is a mammoth eleven-minute opening track. Following a doleful entrance, the Black Metal wall hits you hard, with shrieking vocals and thunderous drumming. The guitar chord progressions are quite unique, refusing to be captured by any conventional boundaries. Sometimes the atmosphere is hopeful while other times despondent. The entirety of the song is really a journey, and the resolve that you can hear in the sound fits the theme of the title. It segues into the title track, "Transparent to the World," which is another extended lengthy track. Idling in the distance, it breaks out of the gate and charges right at you with a deafening rumble, throwing thick smoke into the air and choking out all those in its path. An alluring ambient passage about half way through breaks up some of the intensity. The song really explores several different riff variations and styles throughout.

"So Willingly Dead" opens with a voice trying to communicate with a spirit. The music bubbles at first underneath the surface a bit, with a menacing tone of beguilement. It is oddly playful at times, beckoning you to jump in with a promise of reward, only to consume you with the venom of underworld filth. "The Shortening of the Way" opens with hushed tones, melancholy and doomy. It soon summons all darkness to it and swallows it up, into a track that is both depressive and angry. A loitering passage just before the half way mark makes good use of ambiance, and then the chaos ensues. There is a noticeable crescendo towards the end of the song that sounds like it is marking the end of days. "Narrow-minded Criteria" is a short, two-minute SYSTRAL cover. I'm not familiar with the original, but although it's short, it fits in well with the overall sound on the album.

It's an intriguing album that I think a lot of Black Metal fans will like. It has a lot of traditional elements from the historical side of the genre, but they have spun these elements with their own personality and panache. There is a lot going on in the background that suggest some upper-level songwriting as well. Uniquely theirs, "Transparent to the World" puts BLYH squarely on the Black Metal map of today.