V: Halmstad (Niklas angående Niklas)

Like Bethlehem and Silencer, Shining has never been a listener-friendly outfit to whom you would listen to casually just to have something to listen to. Instead they are a highly intensive band with a dark message drenched in blood. They are not there to entertain – they are there to make you feel uneasy and question everything up to the point where a total state of nihilism rips your soul apart.

In my opinion “Halmstad” is Shining’s greatest masterpiece. All their albums have something unique, but this one is certainly a legendary fortress in the history of black metal music. A rich variety of phantasmagorical elements are implemented with this album. The first track starts off with some words from one of the poems written by W.H. Mearns. The words of this poem already create a very uneasy and uncanny atmosphere which is very nicely complemented by the music. The music is mysterious – slow guitar picking, melancholic vocals and beautiful guitar solos. And this is the irony – although they are very challenging to listen to, Shining still has a brilliant way to create analogies between the rawest, deepest darkness and the beautiful tears rolling down the cheeks of a lonely wanderer in the mist. Within the ugly side of darkness they dig out the beautiful melancholic side and that is what makes this band unique.

The music alternates from slow guitar solos and low, slow guitar riffs to much faster solos and riffs. The drums complement these sounds in such a way that every beat and blast sounds like the first and final shot that send a suicide victim to his or her grave. The psychological aspect throughout every song is immense and unforgiving. The vocals never get boring – instead, every line that is screamed feels like a needle in the heart. What makes this album even more unique is the fact that Shining is addressing the social issue of suicide on a very deep level by even inserting extracts from the movie “Prozac Nation”. Between the slow melancholic music of the second track you can hear an extract where Christina Ricci talks about the tragic aspects of suicide. The way in which the slower pieces of music are followed up by much faster pieces are very exciting. In the faster pieces the band implements a traditional black metal approach mixed with some death metal elements. There is also another extract from “Prozac Nation” where suicidal cries of help can be heard. The band once again contributes a very intense atmosphere to this extract with slow military-pace kind of drumming along with unnerving distorted guitar riffs which suddenly switches over to a complex guitar solo that alternates between slow and fast.

Don’t expect a full driven black metal album, because Shining even pays tribute to the masters of classical music with the fifth track which is the “Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig von Beethoven played on the piano. Between the beautiful piano-playing you can sometimes hear the vocalist humming the tunes in the background – this contributes to the dark atmosphere, because it is clear that this piece of Beethoven is not just another piece that he is playing. Instead, the music devours the musician and also the listener. Although the whole album can be seen as a constant climax it ends on the ultimate black metal kind of climax as the final track kicks in. It is a typical black metal piece of music with unnerving vocals, heavy distorted guitars and drumming that sometimes sounds like gunfire.

This album is definitely a must-have for all fans of black metal. It is totally unique and with this album Shining proved that they are a band who can create anything out of nothing.