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Opium Warlords Set Dec. 4 Release for Nembutal; Stream “A Heavy Heart”

Posted in Whathaveyou on October 2nd, 2020 by JJ Koczan

The headline that Sami Albert Hynninen, otherwise known as Albert Witchfinder of erstwhile Finnish traditionalists Reverend Bizarre, is making a “return to doom-laden heavy metal” is nothing if not compelling. And indeed, the new Opium Warlords, titled Nembutal opens with “A Heavy Heart,” which runs 19 minutes long and moves from Sabbath processionalism to some of the rawest and, frankly, best done Cathedral worship I’ve ever heard. It does not, however, speak for the entirety of the record, which still boasts plenty of the experimentalist/drone/out-of-genre-go-anywhere-free-jazz with which the project has most become associated. No complaints for the weirdness, the otherworldly ambience, or indeed, the doom that pervades. Dude’s never been interested in making it easy for anyone.

If you can’t get behind that mentality, the challenge throughout Nembutal, as through most of what Hynninen does with Opium Warlords will likely prove too much. I don’t think it matters. I’m talking to myself here anyway and I dig this, so whatever.

Here’s to “the end of pain and the end of mankind” as per the PR wire:

Opium Warlords Nembutal

Opium Warlords: “Nembutal”, new album from Albert Witchfinder (Reverend Bizarre)

Albert Witchfinder (Reverend Bizarre) returns to doom-laden heavy metal with the fifth Opium Warlords album NEMBUTAL. Whereas the first four Opium Warlords albums were a brute depiction of psychoses, their fifth offering NEMBUTAL is a sweaty return to a crystal clear existence after a most severe depression. It is a beautiful, multi-layered journey through a broken mind, inner suffering, and slow recovery; clean like a spring rain or autumn morning. It takes you on a trip that will leave you shaken, but purified.

Sami Albert ”Witchfinder” Hynninen (Reverend Bizarre, The Candles Burning Blue, The Puritan, Tähtiportti, KLV, Spiritus Mortis) has in his lifetime, produced hours of devastating, violent, extremely heavy, but at same time strangely serene music. NEMBUTAL is easily one of the more pure gemstones, ultimate in several different opposites; beauty, ugliness, heaviness, floating ambience, progressive structures, minimalism, light, darkness, remorse, vengeance. You have to experience it to really understand.

The record is a joyful vision of death and apocalypse. The end of love, the end of pain and the end of mankind.

On its moments NEMBUTAL is as Metal as it can get, but most of the time it goes beyond any categorization, even beyond rock music. Still, constantly remaining heavy and striking, like a horse whip in the hand of the iron master.

“This might be the best album I have produced so far… but then again my idea of music is completely fucked up.” – Sami Hynninen

Released by Svart Records on December the 4th 2020.

Jewelcase CD
Limited to 500 on black double vinyl
with lyric/photo booklet

NEMBUTAL:
I: A Heavy Heart
II: Threshold Of Your Womb
III: The Destroyer Of Filth
IV: Sarah Was Nineteen Years Old
V: Solar Anus
VI: Early In The Morning The Body Of The Girl Was Found
VII: Perspiring Princess
VIII: Xanadu

Written, arranged, and produced by Sami Albert Hynninen
Co-produced by Jouni Leppikangas
Performed by Sami Albert Hynninen and Erkki Virta

http://www.facebook.com/OpiumWarlords
https://opiumwarlords.bandcamp.com/
www.svartrecords.com
www.facebook.com/svartrecords
www.youtube.com/svartrecords
https://www.svartrecords.com/

Opium Warlords, “A Heavy Heart”

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