''Memoria Vetusta II – Dialogue with the Stars'' is the seventh album by

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

band

Blut Aus Nord Blut Aus Nord (; ) is a French black metal band from Mondeville, Calvados, that has incorporated avant-garde music, avant-garde and Industrial metal, industrial elements in its music. History Vindsval began a solo project, under the name "Vla ...

. The album demonstrates more traditional black metal songwriting and structure than previous album

MoRT ''Mort'' is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett. Published in 1987, it is the fourth '' Discworld'' novel and the first to focus on the character Death, who only appeared as a side character in the previous novels. The title is the ...

, with critics noting that stylistically this album represents a balance between the band's more experimental work and the band's earlier, more traditional black metal releases.

Critical reception

The album was received very positively by critics. Writing for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Alex Henderson gave the album 4/5. He described it as "melodic in a dark, brooding, atmospheric way", concluding that "This isn't happy, escapist music; the material is full of gloom and pessimism, but it is well-crafted and nicely executed. Detractors can claim that Dialogue with the Stars is "too artsy" all they want; the bottom line is that from a creative standpoint, Blut Aus Nord get to have the last laugh."

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's Brandon Stosuy named the album as the 8th best metal album of 2009, writing that "Memoria Vetusta II does what it promises, creating an hour’s worth of sky-shooting epics (fluid guitar solos, repeating motifs, etc.) that move from fragile and meditative to blistering in a heartbeat and really do feel like they’re talking to the constellations. Endless boogie, for sure."

Track listing

Personnel

*Vindsval -

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

*GhÖst -

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

*W.D. Feld - keyboards,

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

;Additional Personnel *David Cragné - artwork

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Memoria Vetusta II - Dialogue with the Stars 2009 albums Blut Aus Nord albums