YMMV / Blut aus Nord

• Archive Panic: With well over a dozen studio albums, many of which form their own separate series and pretty much every one being a New Sound Album, getting into the band can be a bit difficult, even once you get past their inaccessible sound.
• Awesome Art: The cover art of Hallucinogen is quite beautiful. Since it was created by prolific French artist Dehn Sora (beyond his long list of credits on Metal Archives, he also made the video for Deathspell Omega's "Ad arma! Ad arma!", among others), this is no surprise. Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry is no slouch in this department either; the cover artwork was created by even more prolific Swedish artist Kristian Wåhlin (Sora actually worked on several other illustrations for this album, as well).
• Awesome Music: The Mystical Beast of Rebellion, The Work Which Transforms God, the Memoria vetusta trilogy, the 777 trilogy, Hallucinogen, take your pick.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Some people find the spoken-word passage on "Epitome XV" to be such.
• Broken Base: A minor one regarding their sound. While their Industrial-tinged sound is what they're generally known for, critics and genre purists tend to prefer their more melodic and ambient-sounding albums. This can be observed by looking at the album ratings on Metal Archives, which is dominated by genre purists (Ultima thulée and the Memoria vetusta albums have by far the highest ratings). Special fun can be had by then comparing these to the ratings on Prog Archives, which are entirely different (Cosmosophy is the highest rated there, followed by the rest of the 777 trilogy, The Work Which Transforms God, and Saturnian Poetry).
• Creepy Awesome: Most of their Industrial Metal-influenced output falls under this trope.
• Epic Riff: Oh, so many, but perhaps the best example in the band's entire discography is the riff at the end of "Antithesis of the Flesh (...And Then Arises a New Essence)", which is one of the most gorgeous moments in the band's discography in general. ^note For unknown reasons, this track's title is swapped with that of "The Formless Sphere (Beyond the Reason)" on the track listing for the LP release, though the positions of the songs remain the same, and as a result, you may see some track listings featuring the LP's track list; either way, this is the eighth song on the album.
  • The opening riff of "Epitome XIV" is legitimately beautiful.
  • The second half of "Our Blessed Frozen Cells" features another beautiful one.
• Epileptic Trees: Nobody knows what happened to W.D Feld and GhÖst. Some fans assume they left the band (which is odd since there was never any news the two left anyway...) while others feel they never existed, and were just names for Vindsval. The fact that the band members are Reclusive Artists doesn't help either. In any case, the last album for which GhÖst was credited was Triunity and the last album for which Feld was credited was a bit before that, so the question of what happened to them is an open one.
  • The "Members that don't exist" could be exemplified when one looks at the credits on certain albums (in particular Memoria vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age, The Mystical Beast of Rebellion and The Work Which Transforms God) which list guest / session members Nahiam (The Mystical Beast of Rebellion), Taysiah (The Work Which Transforms God) and Ira Aeterna (Memoria vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age and by extent was in Vindsval's dead project Karras) who don't appear in any other work except for the BaN releases except for maybe Ira Aeterna. Again, this is all speculation but it does give the idea that Vindsval makes multiple aliases.
• Even Better Sequel: While Memoria vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age is well-regarded amongst the fanbase, its sequel, Memoria vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars, is often considered the band's best and one of the best Black Metal albums of the the late 2000's/early 2010's. Memoria vetusta I, for its part, tends to be this to Ultima thulée, which is still regarded as a solid melodic black metal album in its own right.
• Genius Bonus: Many of the song titles on Memoria vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars contain references to obscure elements of Buddhism. These aren't the only examples in their discography, either.
• Growing the Beard: While their first two albums are very well loved, The Work Which Transforms God is the album where the band's sound became truly unique.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The guitar tone on Cosmosophy, as well as some of the melodic leads on Dialogue With the Stars (and probably Saturnian Poetry as well). Also, pretty much any time the band utilises harmony singing is going to be an example of this (again, Cosmosophy and Saturnian Poetry both have a lot of this, as does Hallucinogen).
• Nightmare Fuel: Their later releases, with their extremely harsh and noisy textures and copious use of Drone of Dread, are quite unnerving, even by Black Metal standards.
  • The Work Which Transforms God as a whole is split between eerie Drone of Dread and incredibly heavy, dissonant, and inhuman industrial metal. Special mention goes to the song "Inner Metal Cage", which has a part where the guitars and drums drop away leaving only a quiet humming sound, which is then interrupted suddenly by a bizarre, croaking shriek, after which the music resumes with a strange, robotic voice chanting over the riff.
  • MoRT as a whole probably counts. The album is even more dissonant and inhuman than anything else the band has done, to the point of abandoning song structures altogether. And then there's the cover art, which looks like something from Silent Hill.
  • The Disharmonium series more than qualify thanks to the inspiration they take from the Cthulhu Mythos, with Undreamable Abysses and Nahab sounding like the very cosmos collapsing in on itself.
• Sequelitis: A minor case with the 777 trilogy. While they're not outright hated, each album has gotten a progressively cooler reception than the one before. That said, there are plenty of sources that have praised all three albums effusively, such as Pitchfork (which listed all three albums in its top five metal releases of their respective years, and gave the highest point rating to Cosmosophy). Cosmosophy is also the highest rated entry of the trilogy (and, for that matter, the band's entire discography) on Prog Archives (which probably isn't much of a surprise as it barely uses Harsh Vocals and has the longest average song length).
• Signature Song: "Epitome I" or "Procession of the Dead Clowns" for their harder sound, "Epitome XIV" for their softer sound.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Cosmosophy, improbably enough. The whole album has a very ethereal, heavenly sort of tone, in stark contrast to almost everything else by the band.
  • If the screams don't bother you, Memoria vetusta II can also be a case of this trope. Memoria Vetusta III, too, probably. Also Hallucinogen.
• Tear Jerker: A few of their songs are surprisingly enough this, notably the bitter "Procession of the Dead Clowns", "Epitome XVII", and especially "Elevation", the last song off of Memoria vetusa II.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: This trope is usually averted with their fanbase, though as stated under Broken Base, many fans do prefer the band's older sound to its newer one.
• Tough Act to Follow: Memoria vetusta III was always going to get a subdued reaction after the ecstatic reaction to Memoria vetusta II. It's still gotten a very positive reception, but II is still usually regarded as the highlight of the series thus far. The live drumming on III (all the albums before Triunity had programmed drums) has been singled out for lots of praise, however.

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