Vígljós – Ignis Sacer

Vígljós is an interesting one. Despite the name being of Old Norse origins (specifically referring to a light powerful enough to kill a person) the band itself is neither particularly old (the founding members have been playing together for the last two years), nor of direct Norse heritage themselves, with three of the four current musicians in the band being Swiss born and raised an the last one being German (which, arguably, have some Norse roots).

And while I did just use a pretty paragraph detailing the history of the name of the band, I will now go on to the thematic themes favoured by said performers which, interestingly, is not directly tied to what is mentioned above: Instead, the focus seems to be primarily regarding ergotism, which is the ingestion of a particular fungus most famously known as the main ingredient of the LSD synthesized in the seventies.

This thematic focus is expanded upon further by the title of the current victim of my most recent scribble, the bands second release named Tome II: Ignis Sacer – Latin for ‘Holy Fire’ and historically used as shorthand for ergotism.

What does this mean for the School Black Metal act Víljós as a whole then? Well, aside from describing, in quite fascinating lyrical prose, the influence LSD (and the fungus that preceeded it) has had on western society as a whole over the centuries it likewise serves as a reminder of what the genre is capable of; Not only tear down and serve as the front line proverbial fighter of oppression, tradition and self-fulfillment, but equally as a testament to our shared past, checkered though it often is.

And fitting to form (spoken as a non-LSD-user mind you), the release overall also manages to create a sort of disconnect between what is expected and what is delivered; Reading up on the band prior to spinning the record for the first time I was expecting something akin to Drone or Stoner Doom, not Black Metal. And make no mistake, Ingnis Sacer is my any metric that counts a perfect example of what I have come to know and enjoy about the Middle and Eastern European Black Metal scene (I heard the band positively compared to old Batushka as well as Mgla and I happen to agree). It is kept deliberately simplistic, incesssant and full of itself, in all the best ways – With an extension of monotony I can only describe as shamelessly added from Doom Metal to equally great effect.

8 tracks (counting both an instrumental intro and outro), spanning a grand total of nearly forty-three minutes with the first non-instrumental track, ”A Seed Of Aberration” linked below (delightfully with music video attached, something that sadly seems to be a dying artform these days).

https://www.facebook.com/vigljos