Here's a bunch of guys from
Gothenburg, Sweden.
If you think,
though, that you're going to get a blast of melodic death metal, you are in for
a very big surprise.
There is a lot of
contrast on this album, and you will hear some straight up black metal, some
atmospheric electronic stuff, and songs that I would call folk metal, sometimes
in the same track but mostly separate.
Their band name means “to shine” in proto-Indo-European, and I don't
have a clue what that is, so I guess you can also add them to the very long
list of motherfuckers who are smarter than I am.
The album opens with
“Solkronan”, a straight up blast of black metal.
One of the guitar tracks is so scathing and
scalding that I swear it was peeling my flesh just listening to it.
All of the song titles and lyrics are in
Swedish so I have no idea what they are going on about, but they don't sound
happy.
Then the next track comes along,
“Kosmos pulsadra”, which is a very simple, repeating phrase and done mostly
electronically, and thus a big contrast from the first track.
“Nyckeln till livskraftens ursprung” is up
next and it is a beautiful, folky sounding acoustic number.
So right away in the first 3 tracks you're
kind of left wondering what exactly this beast is.
The rest of the album sets
things pretty straight.
What they are is
a very diverse black metal band, who doesn't really worry if they are sticking
to the traditional black metal playbook or forging something new.
The music is grim and melancholic, yet with
enough peace and light at its core that the listener can retain some hope.
Life can be brutal, the brutality can seem
never ending, but there is still a core of light straining to shine through.
Which it does from time to time on this
album.
My two favorite tracks on this
album are “Brunnens hjarta” and “Skymningsdrommar”, which lead one right into
the other and really show all the sides of this band.
There is driving, grim blackness leading into
peaceful sounds from nature, then flowing into a repeating piano riff, only to
fall back into blackness.
Which is a lot
like life can be.
You have the highs and
lows, the moments of peace and despair, happiness and sorrow, dark and
light.
In the end each of us has to
prove how we react to what life throws at us.
We have to embrace the light or be swallowed by the darkness.
This is music that depicts all
of that.
It is a fantastic debut album
and this is a band well worth watching.
That they have so much to say on their first release bodes well for
them.
- ODIN
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