Immersed

The title of Evergreen Refuge's second album suggests listeners really are in for the long haul with this act after the self-titled debut. The cover art, a photographed campfire scene in stark black and white with the camera gazing up towards a tall tree canopy, suggests a secret ritual in which listeners might be initiated into the Evergreen Refuge philosophy of nature and spirit, and the cycle of life, death and possibly rebirth.

All the music on the album is instrumental and is based around interlocked passages of quiet meditative acoustic guitar melody and blazing black metal guitar distortion fire. There is far more black metal here than on the first album and it's very spirited and energetic music. Drumming is very basic and a bit soft around the edges but the guitars can be very good; on one of the middle tracks "Spire of Stone / Obscured by Snow" there are soaring electric guitar tones in the distance and, closer up, slightly fuzzed droning guitar riffs. The quieter sections of music are well done - they often consist of no more than a fragile solo melody and a dark backdrop of melancholy - and often seem to hark back to a pre-Industrial Revolution past.

As the music is based around sequences of rhythmic riff-based black metal and acoustic guitar melodies, individual tracks tend not to have a distinctive identity. There's not much sense of the guitars and percussion taking the listener on a quest that becomes ever deeper or reveals secret knowledge that would transform the listener's awareness of nature and his/her place in it. You get so far and then you're on an even keel for the rest of the album. As the album progresses, the weak percussion becomes something of a problem; the guitars seem top-heavy and any flaws in their playing or any gaps become noticeable and the music's momentum is quickly lost.

Although it's a fairly long set, this album is best heard as one work of six connected tracks. I'd have preferred them all as linked tracks to give the impression of one organic piece of music that breathes in and out with the messages that must be expressed. Breaks between tracks, even if very short, cut the music and can disrupt the listener's mood. The recording could have been edited for length and been a bit tighter, and with that tightening a definite musical path could have been forged.

For its length and given the themes of nature that it wants to explore, "Immersed" needs some drama and more contrasts of light and dark, black and white in its music and moods.