Bræ — Av Vålnader Bortom Allt

Bræ is a Swedish black metal act, whose identity, until recently, was buried in anonymity. Eventually, it was unveiled that two individuals, Swartadauþuz and Déhà, are behind the project; both skilled and prolific in their respective careers.  

Av Vålnader Bortom Allt consists of two long and evolving pieces, a trait that gives momentum to the narration and its execution, without any silent gaps, without any obstructions. Bræ is voluminous throughout and flows like a cataract. Chaotic and concrete, complicated but minimal, they are swarming in the same path with contemporaries like Sutekh Hexen or with hegemonic acts of the past, like their  Swedish comrades, Abruptum. Their sound acts inevitably as a bridge between the 90’s brutality and that of today. They are keeping the old roots alive and simultaneously transplanting new offspring. 

This is a relentless work, blending guitar-based noise, black noise, and continuous and hyper-charged noise riffs, merged with dark ambient and all that bearing the stigma and the banner of black metal. A sound that derives from an extremity of the genre, where everything seems plain and exceptionally clear, with as less details as possible in the first listening. But by going deep, one realizes that the sound is constantly thick and harsh in a minimalistic approach but with many layers. Av  Vålnader Bortom Allt is intensively lo-fi, bleeding by the high-frequency guitar, the crushing drum blasts and the soaring vocal reaps. A sonic black plague, punching through a walls of distortion!.

 
Proportionally, Bræ is operating in the more experimental or avant-garde current within black metal, a  trend that has given a fresh breath to an otherwise beautiful, meaningful but decaying and stationary sound. That step forward is what the genre needs to move on and Bræ, along with others, are keeping the flame burning and the beast refreshed. 

Their debut, A Thousand Ways To End It All, was released via Amor Fati in 2021 and it was explosive! It also signified the commencing of a chthonic pilgrimage to the deities of chaos and distorted black noise/ambient! In 2023, this new album is unleashed, with its destructive tremor leaving already its mark, again.