Where Twilight Dwells

Midnattsol's album "Where Twilight Dwells" is, as albums go, a rather impressive debut. Of course, it's not as if this band simply came together and released this album - most of the instrumentalists have been in the same bands as each other before, and the only new face is vocalist Carmen Elise Espanaes, who just happens to be Liv Kristine's sister, so even she has some kind of pedigree.

The band is listed here as "folk metal" in part, and far be it from me to criticise that listing. Just don't expect too much of a folk influence right from the start, as it's really on the ballads that this style is played up. On the harder numbers, Midnattsol sounds more like a standard-issue gothic metal act. Such folk influence as there is, incidentally, sounds very Celtic in parts. There are multi-tracked vocals, Carmen almost seems to have adopted an Irish accent on songs like "Desolation" (my pick of the ballads, incidentally, partly because it has a stronger backing), soft acoustic guitars and so forth. There's even a mouth harp every so often, which is ever so slightly intrusive.

I mentioned "harder numbers" a moment ago, and this is definitely the case. The album opens with "Another Return", which features one of the trademarks of the band's sound - a surprisingly crisp guitar sound. I really can't explain it better than that, but it's not a sound quality which I've heard in too many other places. The guitar is significantly more prominent in the mix than I expected. This is the case on each one of the harder tracks.

Being Norwegian, though, they couldn't escape without a song or two in their native language. "Pa Leting" is one such track, and it features a very solid melding of the ballad and hard styles they're prepared to play. I can't claim to understand the lyrics, but as is often the case over this album the lyrics are closer to "the sound made by Carmen's voice as an instrument" than they are to "the lyrics of distinct songs". Readers familiar with the work of Jon Anderson of Yes - who famously sings very impressionistic lyrics designed more to sound in a certain way rather than express concrete ideas - will probably have some idea of what I mean here.

There's definitely some real promise in Midnattsol, and more than enough to make me keep an eye out for more albums by them. The reason that I haven't given this a higher rating is that it feels a bit "safe" as an album. Admittedly, this is the first outing for the band as a cohesive unit, but there's a sense that they're working well within themselves and just aren't quite prepared to adventure beyond the templates they've laid down. Admittedly, gothic metal is a relatively stylised genre, but there's more than a little folk influence here and that (as we all know) is one of the metal styles which never fails to throw up weird and wonderful results. Perhaps, therefore, a stronger folk sense is what's required on album number two. To be fair, though, I'd buy another album from this lot even if it didn't move too much beyond what they have here.