Warsaw’s VIAMAER released “In excitatione terrae” on December 4th, the opening track from the debut album In lumine lunae. VIAMAER is the solo project of Krystian Jurkiewicz, blending blackgaze, post-black metal, and shoegaze into something emotionally raw and spacious. Jurkiewicz handles arrangement, composition, mixing, and mastering himself.
The project was born out of silence, out of moments when a person is left alone with their own tension, fear, and calm. It wasn’t born from a need to create music but from a need to express something that couldn’t be spoken in words. He describes it with one sentence: “Musica vitae meae pars est, affectus autem ea sunt quae narro” (Music is a part of my life, and emotions are what I narrate).
The song transcends language barriers due to its atmospheric and powerful sound. The choice of textures here, from the blackgaze signature sound alongside the dark harmony, creates a vivid image of an apocalyptic event taking place. If one takes the time to translate the Polish lyrics (or if one is a Polish listener), the lyrics tell the story of a horrible and powerful entity awakening. Given the current climate of the planet and the dark tonality of the song doesn’t seem to bode well for humanity. The music overall has that signature drawn out sound of post-metal that creates that inherent desperation, like it’s going to go on forever, capturing you in its sonic vista of despair.
“In excitatione terrae” is the opening track from Jurkiewicz’s debut album In lumine lunae, an eight-part narrative suspended between light and shadow. The album took two years to create, combining Polish lyrics with Latin titles to create contrast between personal language and symbolic narration. Each track carries its own emotional weight, forming a sequence of states rather than a collection of songs. In lumine lunae drops soon, and if this opening track is any indication, it’s going to be a heavy journey.
