FIRST UTTERANCE

First Utterance is an album I rarely listen to and for good reason. It's pagan intensity and fixation with dark subjects can seem ghoulish and absurd at times; however, whenever I do put this album on, it's an event, a trip to a cold mountaintop' a sacrifice.

And it is a sacrifice well worth the time. First Utterance is epic and ferocious, burning with a kind of fury the peak of which is rarely reached by even the most misanthropic of metal bands, but also gentle and feeling. While the use of violence isn't necessarily something I tend to gravitate towards, it has a strange poignancy here. Something about the dark events that occur' rape, horrific acts of violence, martyrdom, and losing one's sanity' make those serene moments ever-gripping. The lonely violin solo in 'The Herald' is remiscent of a passage in Elie Weisel's harrowing holocaust tome 'Night' in which one of the characters, after having run with a group of other prisoners in the snow to the next concentration camp, plays his violin solemnly in a mass of dead and dying prisoners' he eventually breaths his last with his violin in hand.

This contrast is what makes this album great. Comus taps the wild and tranquil sides of folk music. Guitarist/vocalist Roger Wootten howls and yells like a viscous animal, while soprano Bobbie Watson lullubies like a virginal siren. Instrument technique and recording quality is rough and untamed, but the songs are expertly arranged and performed in such a way that I couldn't imagine any other band playing these songs.

From the swampy upward trudge of 'Diana,' to the savage insanity of 'The Prisoner,' First Utterance is a violent, dark, and strange, but ultimately poignant journey through pagan folk music. Also, for those interested, the B-sides of this album are also fantastic and definitely worth checking out.