Review by Ben for Fleurety - Min tid skal komme (1995)

Wonderfully creative and experimental black metal that helped break down the firm barriers of all things "true".

Fleurety's Min Tid Skal Komme album sure is an eclectic piece of work. While this album is nearly always categorised as black metal, there are many elements here that are quite distant from the genre's blueprint. The mid-nineties was the period when adventurous musicians decided it was OK to merge the normally elite genre of black metal with other outside influences to well, see what would happen. I'm extremely thankful for this curiosity, as we ended up with wonderful albums such as Ved Buens Ende's Written in Waters, Arcturus' La Masquerade Infernale, Solefald's The Linear Scaffold and of course, Fleurety's Min Tid Skal Komme. This period in some ways saved black metal from an early over-saturated death, and this free and experimental attitude has continued right up to today.

There's something extremely organic about the Fleurety experience. It all sounds like it could have been performed live, with the drums feeling very unprocessed and natural. The music swirls between bizarre progressive soundscapes, experimental rock and atmospheric black metal without coming across as clunky or even strange. It just seems...right! It's as though the band were improvising at times and yet the result is too mesmerising to suggest there wasn't an immense amount of planning involved. One of the unique aspects for the time was the inclusion of a female vocalist and I have to say that Marian Aas Hansen's performance is outstanding, particularly when contrasted to the raspy black metal vocals that on their own may have been a bit too weak. She is apparently a pop singer from Norway and her talent is obvious, never entering overly-operatic tendencies that seem the norm for many female vocal additions in metal.

Alexander's riffs are immensely creative and discordant, and he switches between different styles easily, seemingly having no fear of what should go where. The bass is very audible and holds a much more prominent place than on most black metal albums. There's a lot of talent behind all this madness and I really wish the band had explored these avenues further over the next few years. Min Tid Skal Komme is one of those albums that gets better with time and the more I listen to it, the more enjoyment I find. Fleurety deserve a heck of a lot more credit than they receive for helping break down barriers and exploring musical realms formerly uncharted. Highlight tracks are Fragmenter av en Fortid and the genuinely amazing Englers Piler Har Ingen Brodd. If you like your metal experimental, you owe it to yourself to check this out!