Opera singer doing Burzum karaoke

Urfaust - Verflucht das blenden der erscheinung (mp3)
Urfaust - Skogens hatefulle skapning (mp3)
Urfaust on MySpace
Urfaust from Holland tends to be my favourite band among the newcomers in evergrowing BM scene. This trio does primitive yet epic mid-tempo black metal and contemporary classical orchestral compositions. The black metal songs have that typical dungeon reverb and the feeling is powerful and solid as in the ballads of Aerosmith. The structures are simple and repetitive. There's some sort of noiserock twist in the approach to guitars, Urfaust uses feedback sounds and other noises that appear when doing lo-fi recordings in an artistic way to create specific atmosphere. I love that track where guitarist uses minimalistically flanger effect during the whole song. As Akitsa, Urfaust has a very experimental feel in their music, it's that kind of experimental like early Sonic Youth.
But the most outstanding part of Urfaust is the vocal. There's an appropriate description on the Aquarius Records website (by the way, it's a good place to look for eccentric black metal). It goes something like this : imagine a deliriously drunk german opera singer performing karaoke with an early Burzum song. The vocal is mostly clean and it reminds Fenriz's vocals on Isengard's albums, but Urfaust does it in much more eccentric way. But that singer can also do the most manic BM shrieking. In Ildjarn cover (from "Under the banner of strength and anger - hommage to Ildjarn") the vocals are as insane as the euphoric howling of Leatherface when attacking with a chainsaw.
And then there are orchestral works. Sometimes with vocals, but mostly instrumental and the instruments sure sound as genuine strings and horns. And there's a nice concert hall reverb to make things even more authentic. There must be some academical background in doing such arrangements. But I'm still amazed that some guys performing raw and dirty black metal are able to do it. It's understandable that Frank Zappa or John Zorn have done orchestral works, but how could THIS happen ?? These tracks are made in such high professional level, that when I would compare them with for example Alfred Schnittke's compositions, I couldn't make difference in quality. "Geist ist teufel" reminds me a lot Arvo Pärt's "Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten".