A gorgeous-looking deluxe vinyl reissue of the 1996 album from this French avant-garde black metal cult, the latest edition of Fathers Of The Icy Age: Memoria Vetusta I with stunning new artwork and album design by Metastazis (Dapnom, Morbid Angel, Antaeus, Nachtmystium), foil stamping on the cover, printed inner sleeve, 180 gram vinyl...this album has never looked better. We've got this on the limited grey colored wax...

Here's my original write-up of the Candlelight Cd edition:

The second in a series of reissues of early Blut Aus Nord albums presented by Candlelight Records, Memoria Vetusta is the French black metal band's second album from 1996, and as I sit here and listen to this, I'm thinking that it's probably my favorite out of all of the Blut Aus Nord albums. Don't get me wrong, everything that this band has released is amazing, no two albums of theirs are the same, and all are absolutely essential listening for fans of adventurous black metal and heavy, abstracted weirdness. But Memoria has got to have their catchiest songs ever, and I just can't stop listening to this album. This new edition is presented with new album artwork that consists of a series of green-tinted mountainscapes, which continues the visual theme from the reissue of the band's first album Ultima Thulee which was released simultaneously with this. Musically, this is Blut Aus Nord before they mutated into the interdimensional black art of their 00's output; on Memoria, the band unleash epic, ghoulish black metal blasts with heavy, emotive synthesizers that lend a classic prog rock/80's soundtrack vibe to the blackened buzzsaw assault. It's all as atmospheric and haunting as their debut, and the melodic hooks here are stunning, they'll stick in yer head for days. Some of the spacey guitar lines here even have a shoegazey shimmer to them, and all of the riffage is really inventive and powerful. An awesome combination of grandiose frostbitten black metal a la Emperor and woozy, surreal celestial beauty. And yeah, you can hear the band starting to mutate, the drum machines start to stumble here and there, breaking off into Godfleshy dirges and weird mathy rhythms that take you by surprise, and the guitars occasional take on that melted, flowing in-and-out-of-tune sheen that Blut Aus Nord would take to extreme levels with their later albums. Lots of clean Viking singing and heavenly chorales soar across the album too. Brilliant, psychedelic black metal, one of the best France has to offer. Highly recommended.