The suffocating glow of the ironworks, a hammered-at strobe light generated in a place of darkness, steam and billowing smoke sets the scene from which Katowice, Poland-based black metal quartet Furia emerge, barking and rallying across this riveting sixth full-length album. Now achieving two decades of vibrancy as one of the most influential, innovative acts within their realm today none would scoff if ‘Huta Luna‘ was a victory lap or a roots-gripping return for these Silesian folks, and in fact it will appear that way ’til closer inspection reveals a more complete transformation which takes a step beyond the promise of their earlier work and creates something familiar yet new within their sphere. The mystère of their invention and its meaning is not exactly as impenetrable to follow yet still reads aggressively abstract as this rousing, ruggedly expressed attack bashes through an indomitable row of memorable acts before stepping through the portal summoned and soaking in the ambiance beyond.

The new millennium made no explicit promise of something new to tired, woefully exploited black metal mindset ’til it’d had a few years to cook, wherein the fundamentalist movements in Scandinavia and France were in an eruptive state and tribes in Iceland and Poland of all places began to embody the path of variously recycled, mangled and vivified connective tissue. Around 2003 guitarist/vocalist Nihil was a few demos deep into his extreme and uncouth black metal band Massemord and in this state of turbulence he’d reached for a more atmospheric and melodic voice within Furia, formed that same year and featuring most of the same musicians. From the start their work was expressed as individualism in the postmodernist sense, a colorful way to suggest meaning was derived from a mirror upon the self and well. The consensus on their early work in hindsight was that the actual riffs related much of their work to the rhythm guitar prowess of Taake in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I would personally suggest ‘Nattestid ser porten vid‘ is the better comparison on their first demo (‘I Spokój‘, 2004) perhaps with some admiration for Shining‘s first record, or similar. On the second demo (‘I Krzyk‘, 2005) eh around that time I was deep into random tapes like Gontya Kry‘s ‘Welowie‘ and early Behemoth at the time, that’d been my idea of Polish black metal alongside some more obvious choices and that was my association with their demo era prior to the first LP (‘Martwa Polska Jesień‘, 2007) though it might’ve made more sense to lump some of their guitar techniques, such as the clean-toned guitar breaks, along the lines of Veles‘ earlier work which for many bands is still a primordial template.

Getting to this point in their discography is important not only because Furia‘s debut LP is still full of exceptional vitality today but we can find a lot of those same traits in ‘Huta Luna‘ while appreciating what they’ve cast aside as vestigial since their official beginning. “Dzień Czarny, Noc Czarna” was the song that’d sold me on the band, around the time the bass guitar breaks through, but of course keep in mind I wouldn’t have discovered their work as it was Mgła‘s first LP, or the compilation of the first two EPs, that’d prompted taking a look at what else was going on in Poland circa 2008. It would be fair to say that ‘With Hearts Towards None‘ was the one that fully turned Sauron‘s eye but Furia were already three albums and two EP releases deep into their own ideas and they were not impossible to know back then. The quiet parts became more interruptive, the loud parts became more aggressive, and the atmospheric drift of the band began to demand something different as experiments like ‘Halny‘, (2010), a single 20 minute piece of psychedelic rock/post-punk influenced atmospheric work which appeared partially improvised, suggested these folks were brimming with ideas beyond the stretchable boundaries of black metal tradition.

In fact they’d already been at it in terms of the Let The World Burn Coalition yielding several other projects inspired by post-industrial, post-punk all of which produced a boon of ~2011 releases, not far from Furia‘s third LP (‘Marzannie Kr​ó​lowej Polski‘, 2012) which even then I don’t think anyone had been able to penetrate the meaning and the modus of the band outside of Poland. Probably for lack of any serious attempt. This is perhaps the most important point to make about music that revels in thoughts kept close to the chest, if we cannot interpret the meaning with some critical thinking applied then feeling with the music should reveal clear enough if it is worthwhile, or, truly meant “for” you. Anyhow, it was a dark mood but also brough folk and shoegazing ebb into the mix. At this point one has a good enough idea what to expect from the Furia sound as in many respects one would miss the nuance and details of their work skipping over prior releases but the third LP was the one to feel like a defining moment with cumulative strength attained. Of course that wasn’t a good thing for an artist who strives to be singularity, the more recent chapters of the band’s work only strive to be different in a number of ways whereas the precedence for what ‘Huta Luna‘ does in its first ~36 minutes can be tangentially gleaned from revisiting the sum of their first ten years awake.

The first LP from Furia could immortalize them well enough with most black metal listeners but in the long run most would today choose between their fourth (‘Nocel‘, 2014) and the fifth (‘Ksi​ę​ż​yc milczy luty‘, 2016) which must’ve been on the Best of the Year list for every single person I knew at the time but I would not say I became so personally invested in their work until more recently, around 2019 when bassist Sars‘ post-punk/experimental group Wędrowcy~Tułacze~Zbiegi released their second album wherein I’d decided to rip through Furia‘s discography much like today and find the biggest points of connectivity. While I can appreciate an experimental-minded band it is rare to find such a great ear for consistency and such ability in relaying meaning through substantive personal work. It is a long walk to get to such a simple point here but ‘Huta Luna‘ is not -just- the sixth LP from Furia, a milestone in its own right per twenty years of sovereignty, but their discography as a whole features releases of high substantive value, even their demo CD-r releases were of great impact if we dig deep enough and impregnate them with our own guesses at meaning. Whatever depth you might reach this and all past work bears a sense of self-exploration that rewards whenever given due attention.

Exiting the foundry, collapsing under the light of day. — So, is this a sleepy “necrofolk” record like ‘Ksi​ę​ż​yc milczy luty‘? Is it a theatrical open mic reading of post-punk/post-metal like ‘W śnialni‘? What I’ve experienced thus far resembles a blast and shout-a-long black metal record with a half hour ambient piece to round out its hour-and-six. Maybe it is my formative years in heavy music being spent obsessed with street punk and thrash but a gang-shouted vocal is enough to send my body hurtling from my chair, or at least spasming in place as the hall barks along with Nihil through these twisted and percussive black metal pieces, all of which are delivered at a wrathful pace by a human hand, often leaning into melodicism as they flow quickly into downward stricken acts.

Still bearing the auld rhythmic trademarks for Furia but with greater intricacies applied ‘Huta Luna‘ has a camaraderie to its verve as the zig-zagging lunges of riff which opener “Zamawianie trzeciea” create a charged spectacle shouted up the valley by those emerging from their pits, leaping out to battle. The main dual guitar thread of “Idź!” offers the ideal example here in terms of still viably being considered a ‘post’-black metal variant explored in some idiosyncratic depth but nonetheless bearing the folken, swerving rip which is consciously black metal in force and rippling with explosive energy yet we could take a closer look at most any of the first five or so pieces on the album and feel these effects. After sitting with the entire discography cracking into this album is doubly exciting even when compared to their first few LPs when we take speed, composition and statement into account, though if you’ve been following along a song like “Zamawianie wirujących Sarmatów (czwarte)” might occasionally feel like it was pulled from the same headspace as some of those early records before the patience of ‘Nocel‘ hit.

Mount up! — An instant hit with me from the first song the flood of inspired, aggressive steam that poured from ‘Huta Luna‘ masterfully held its momentum between a battled-out and barking column of pieces. The nuance available is admittedly buried at a glance, some of their sophistication must relent to chest-forth vocals and blitzing speed on the drums yet the guitar and bass interplay, specifically the rhythm guitar’s dalliance with post-punk etched framing, allows for plenty of sharply writ variation within this initial rampage. The piece that’d hit hardest every time, even well beyond the thirtieth spin, was of course their call of “Na koń!” a feasibly melodic piece if we consider its complete statement but also an energizing song by any standard. The thrum of the bassline, the surf guitar rake of the second guitar ~1:42 minutes in, those masterfully inserted details helped push the listening experience beyond good into greatness for my own taste but also sets this level of cleverness apart from that of their early pagan-black metal inspirations. The folken-punkish blender of “Wracaj” completes this dance of harried elements, which reads to me almost as the rhythmic gist of an early Aeternus piece in the way it builds its circularly strafed rhythm in between declarative statements.

The voice of the guitarists begins to sing loudest as we reach for the middle portion of the album’s first half, its core ~36 minutes, wherein between aforementioned songs “Idź” and “Zamawianie wirujących Sarmatów (czwarte)” we’ve struck upon some of the most memorable pieces Furia have written to date in terms of their simple impact. Surely they’ve written notable riffs in the past, multitudes, but most often as part of a larger statement whereas the ~3-5 minute songs here serve fast and effective moments throughout this album keeping it quick and clean in terms of impact. By the time “Gore!” hits the listening experience feels complete, just at the cusp of perfection and never overstated, really if the album ended right there it’d have been enough to count ‘Huta Luna‘ among the best of 2023 (and it will be, nonetheless) but we must also consider the half hour of “Księżyc, czyli Słońce” which greets us at the point where the band set down their instruments and leave them abuzz, gates crash shut in the distance, electrical storms hiss through, sheets of metal explode into drone, and about ten minutes of singing in the distance hit near the end. I found this piece painless, relevant to crafting the entire atmosphere of the record and it creates a very strong contrast to the other half of the experience. No foul from my perspective but I could see it bugging impatient types

Without falling to the expected, logical, progressive or balanced result per a maturing font of artistry ‘Huta Luna‘ is a rush, one of the most thrillingly stated results from the Furia front to date and made all the more compelling for its ambient companion which provides a long stretch of dissociation in between attacks. For my own taste it was, again, immediately compelling and inspiring to make contact with this record from the first listen and this only increased withing the duration of each revisit no matter how biting the analysis. Easily counted among the best black metal adjacent releases of the year. A very high recommendation.

https://paganrecords.bandcamp.com/album/huta-luna

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