Dauþuz - Uranium (2024)^{Release ID: 51789}

The troglodytic german duo are back once more with more tales from the subterranean world of deep mining. From the album's title and the opening crackling of a Geiger counter, the theme obviously concerns the mining of radiactive materials (confirmed by quickly running the lyrics through Google Translate). This is related in the form of six tracks of melodic atmospheric black metal that is chiefly kept at a medium-paced tempo, with blastbeats being used only sparingly.

Initially Uranium didn't really grab my attention as anything particularly special. Yet repeated listens saw the melodies woven by Aragonyth's tremolo riffing lodging themselves in my brain and the dynamic between those melodies and Syderyth's frankly unhinged vocal performance revealed a very satisfying dichotomy between the positivity expressed by the riffs and the negativity expressed by the vocals. I guess in a way this musical tension reflects the trade-off between the dangers and rewards of mining such exceedingly dangerous, yet ridiculously valuable materials. 

This is ultimately a far more skillfully put together album than it initially appears and rewards time spent in it's subterranean depths with some fantastic black metal melodies, with penultimate track, "Wismut »Justiz«" even evoking the closing melody of Fear Factory's "Pisschrist". However, black metal should always leave the listener feeling somewhat disquieted and the agreeable melodies are given a sharpened and dangerous edge by the vocal performance, preventing it falling into too comfortable a space and nudging it back into a more disturbing headspace. I really like how the duo have produced the musical equivalent of the steel fist in a velvet glove here and made the listener work a little to uncover it's inner workings with deceptively adept songwriting.