Arson Cafe: Lamp of Murmuur - Saturnian Bloodstorm Review

Sunday, March 26, 2023

Lamp of Murmuur - Saturnian Bloodstorm Review

Among the numerous underground, noisy raw black metal projects that make appearances and disappearances in the scene the last few years, one of the most talked about ones has definitely been Lamp of Murmuur. After a series of demos and a split with Revenant Marquis, this band captivated the audience with its grandiose debut Heir of Ecliptical Romanticism in 2020, a record that found its way even to more mainstream lists and ears despite its harsh nature. Undoubtedly, there was massive inspiration and merit in that release, which did not evaporate at the follow-up album Submission and Slavery in 2021, establishing the Lamp of Murmuur name for good as a newcomer to look out for in black metal.

Up to now, everything has been bleached in black and white representation, which brought the first wave of shock in the form of the well-designed, colourful cover art of the new record Saturnian Bloodstorm (which is, as the title, actually delightful). I had been in waiting for the time Lamp of Murmuur will actually step outside of its shadow and aim bigger, this attempt coming now with this polished work that wants to take them closer to the spotlight.

While I am all for band ambition, the discography on their shoulders is already quite heavy and for what it is, Saturnian Bloodstorm is surprisingly uninteresting and stale. It is clear that the band makes almost tribute albums to their music role models (Submission and Slavery was a love letter to Sisters of Mercy) and now this record looks Immortal straight in the eye. Taking a production even cleaner than At the Heart of Winter, a worrying chunk of this album feels and sounds like Immortal, their landmark guitar sound and riff structure. The guitar lines are too close to that (reeking examples in “Hymns of Death, Rays of Might”, “Seal of the Dominator” and “In Communion with the Wintermoon”, as in, wintermoon…) but the record lacks the energy, the pathos and the vitality of the previous Lamp of Murmuur works.

It almost doesn’t feel like them, and what was unique and exciting to listen to before from this band, has now completely disappeared, them having turned into a Scandinavian norsecore clone with slim to none of their own identity. Saturnian Bloodstorm is fun to listen to, it is clean enough to not be annoying and has a couple of catchy moments. But this statement by itself, is a huge disappointment when talking about Lamp of Murmuur.

Out on March 26th, 2023 | Argento Records

DAMAGE: 2.5/5 [Average]

1 comment:

InManusTuasMarch 27, 2023 at 9:17 AM
Quite a letdown. But somehow doesn't bother you to listen to it.
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Reckoning

From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.