Margi sakalai

Altorių Šešėliai, or Altar Shadows, is a one man ambient/black metal act hailing from the small Baltic country of Lithuania. Altar Shadows is the brainchild of one Avinpapis, and focuses on creating incredibly beautiful and yet melancholic music which is drenched in an irrefutable reverence of nature and rustic living, and this is presented perfectly here on his debut full-length, Margi Sakalai (Speckeldy Falcons). I’m fairly sure speckeldy isn’t a word, but I’ll let that slide, it’s just THAT GOOD.

This album is unbelievable. The sheer clarity with which Avinpapis is able to communicate the themes of his music is astonishing; with gorgeous, flowing riffs, rolling drum beats, laid-back and yet highly emotive growled vocals and just the slightest of synthesiser ambience combining to create an album which, more than most others I have encountered, is able to capture the essence and aura of nature and the wild so precisely that it is hard not to be enticed by the beauty found herein. Samples of flowing streams, rolling thunder, pouring rain, farm noises, galloping horses and blowing wind (while somewhat clichéd on nature-themed albums) are cleverly interspersed at the beginning and end of each song, which adds to the texture of this piece of art, and give it a great ‘natural’ feeling as well as an ongoing flow, allowing you to simply take in the album and the music as a whole.

The riffs presented here vary somewhat in style. For the majority of the time, they are quite simple; focussing mainly on creating a mellow and calming atmosphere which is really what provides the attraction for Margi Sakalai. However, contrasting this, are songs such as Á Dar Gilesná Pragarà II (To Even Deeper Hell II), where Avinpapis utilises powerful, driving black metal riffing which gives the album a great amount of variation in both its style and atmosphere. Avinpapis is clearly quite a talented song-writer and uses all of his instruments rather sparingly, calling on different elements at various points throughout the album to add a certain atmosphere to the music or to change the way the listener approaches what they are hearing, as well as giving it a fantastic feeling of tasteful minimalism. He even incorporates the use of a cello and a flute, which gives the music a nice amount of variation and allows the music to take on different nuances and feelings. This is exemplified by the track Gelsvas Mënuo III (The Yellow Moon III ), where Avinpapis contrasts the same musical theme through alternating guitars and flutes, resulting in probably the highlight of the album.

Avinpapis’ true strength lies in his skills of composition. While the songs presented on Margi Sakalai are all quite simple, their draw lies in the subtle changes in mood which he is able to create through slight tempo, riff or drumming changes, each one of which adds another layer onto the music and the atmosphere. Avinpapis’ vocals also add quite a lot to the feeling of the album, always maintaining a low-fi growl which seems to just float on the music and become part of the atmosphere, rather than ever being intrusive or overpowering which wouldn’t work in such a mellow album.

This is the perfect album for going to sleep to. It is just a beautiful, laid-back 45 minutes of music, which is able to transport you to rain-soaked fields and forests, thick scrubland, misty moorlands or wherever you let it if you’re feeling so inclined to go on transcendental nature journeys. You should also check out the video that was made for the Yellow Moon, which, while utterly hilarious in parts (it features a grown man dancing around a campfire, which is...disconcerting, to say the least), quite nicely captures the essence of this album. Plus, it features a quality cover of a Blackthru song, so it’s all positives. If you’re at all interested in nature-based albums, get up off your fat internet-reading arse and buy this slab of Lithuanian brilliance.