How many of you still believe that black metal music is only for untalented wannabe musicians? Hope not too many. Through the years we have see many exceptional acts rising around the world, driving extreme music like black metal to astonishing heights of artistic exploration. It takes a lot of courage to explore end understand the music vision of such acts. The Firstborn fits like a glove in this category.
Hailing from Portugal the act exists for more then a decade. So far they have release two more full-length albums while their brand new effort took four years in the writing and one more year in the recording! Now that's a hell of a long time don't you agree? From a country mostly known for its epic / classic metal acts The Firstborn was indeed a vivid surprise for me.
Let me first mention that this is a concept album dealing with Tantric Buddhism, based on the Tibetan Book Of The Dead! OK this might not say a lot to most of you (and me). Personally I was never involved to Buddhism and since the vocalist growls and scream most of the time I can't really say I understood anything from the lyrics. Still I have to admit this sounded like a cool idea.
The tricky and exciting part however is the music of the band where it is deeply influenced by the Far Eastern musical culture. The outcome of this is the extensive use of traditional instruments, most of them are samples of course. All this interacts amazingly well with the complexity of the compositions, spanning from extreme to more atmospheric metal ideas. It took a while to get use to these samples since there are quite front row in most compositions but once I figured how things work I was stunned by the band's ability to actually fuse all those elements in one compact musical entity.
I can't say if the majority of the metal fans will fall in love with this one. It's a demanding album not giving easily away its secrets. However I urge everyone open minded enough to listen The Unclenching Of Fists just for the experience. Both thumbs up from my side!