Svarta nyanser av ljus

Svarta Nyanser Av Lju, roughly translated as Black Nuances of Light, is one of the most memorable of the five Hypothermia demos, though amongst all the releases and sound-development at the time, it seems to be somewhat lost amidst it all; it's simply been forgotten. Which is the sad truth, considering this is the true defining moment of Hypothermia's career. The true identity of the band has arrived. Why? Well, for starters the all so familiar vocals of front man Kim Carlsson are at long last, used to their full potential. It's as if the music is a vast ocean, and Kim is barely under the surface, he tries calling out for help, but no one hears... no one will ever hear, no matter how much he screams or cries, no one will ever hear him. The waves of mesmerizing, rotary music is, to a point, hypnotic and would represent the back-and-forth motion of the waves, in which the ocean, Kim is metaphorically stranded in. The hopeless sound of the overall product is desolate - or, in other words, perfect.

Essentially this is a single tracked demo.Though, I see this song as a division of two entities. We have the ambient prelude, which overtime, if given the chance, becomes the recognizable prelude to depression - one of those things, that no matter how happy you are, you hear it and you just wait. You wait to be completely destroyed, you wait for the music to consume you, then it does.. You will hear the chilling, defining sound, on which Hypothermia's entire career here on in would seemingly be based upon. The recognition of the riff is undisputed, maybe not directly, but it's awfully familiar to many future releases brought forth. The completely un-versatile (pseudo-word; lack of versatility) approach to DSBM is what makes this record all the more depressive. There's no happy ending, no up-beat, cheery sections, no relief - just one, long, agonizing piece of art. And like all art - some people will understand it, interpret it and identify with it, and others simply won't. Unfortunately, most of you people, see the latter in this music, which is an unfathomable loss on your behalf.

It's hard to honestly convince the listener for what - if anything - they're going to experience. As it all comes down to personal taste. When the song is dissected, what we have is the very basic, core ingredients to a depressive song. The riffs repeated to no end on a single guitar, no tempo changes, simplistic drums, monotonous production and screams, alongside an inaudible bass. The song is here to be interpreted, the atmosphere is there to be soaked up for all it's worth and the listener is to be taken on a journey through their own body. When all of this is brought together in unison, it's somewhat all brought into perspective. This song represents life, regardless of whether or not you feel what it's trying to advertise applies to you or not. It's bleak, horrid and hopeless - is that not what your life is? It will completely rip you from your comfortable reality of hallucinated beliefs and place you in a reality where nothing is phony, nothing is covered up and nothing is a secret. You'll see the world, life and the people you spend it with for what they're really worth.

Yeah, this review was a bit of an exaggeration. Yeah, it's just music, and if you don't like it you can change the song. But the efforts gone into this release are undoubtedly amazing, and it is worth all but 19 minutes of your life. Listen to this... I'm telling you to.

'Svarta Nyanser Av Lju' is a quite minimalist demo, in recording devices and musical abundance, but not in atmosphere, and that's the importance.

It begins with quiet sound samples, of winds, basses, shrieks...material which creating a silent mood. Then the guitars comes in with a slow riffing in a depressive tone, the drums are very slow also and emphasis the monotonous feeling, there aren't a lot of riffs also, they repeat themselves quite a lot but they doesn't becomes too much repetitive or boring. After six minutes there is a new riff which gives a new shade for this song and of course help it last for longer. The vox are as typical black metal shrieks, but these are the more depressive, and grimy, which of course more suitable for this demo.

It's a long track, 19 minutes, but repeat itself a lot and could be easily a five minutes song. However, the repetition helps this demo with the dark feeling and increases more grimness and coldness within. It worked for me only in extremely specific moods, but when it worked, it sounds like the second version of Burzum, which takes you slowly to cold, and dark places in your mind.