Innerlig förmörkelse

Though Sweden has always had the benefit of a strong metal scene in most genres, its black metal is 2nd only to death in terms of overall quality. Veterans like Dark Funeral and Marduk soldier on, but it's rare that promising new blood is injected into the wound, and with a devilsend like Mörk Gryning breaking up, there is plenty of void to fill.

Enter Sorgeldom, a young three piece who have crafted a debut of raw but thoughtful black metal. Innerlig Förmörkelse thrives on its sharp edged riffing, brutal blunt vocals and the airy atmosphere of its crisp mix. "Insikter" anoints the album with a selection of repetitious notes that induce a wintry hypnosis. "Oroväckande Förlust Av Ett Förlorat Förstånd" offers the full experience: drums, vocals and nearly 12 minutes of cold black metal to herald the oncoming seasons. There are plenty of riffs in the track to break it up, and the band does revisit their mellow acoustic side. "Då Drömmen Dog, Dödade Dagen Dig" offers another crisp acoustic intro, this one quite good, with a shine to it like the watching your blood steam from an open wound under a February full moon. Glorious and hostile riffing ensues to secure this track's place as one of the best on the album. "Livslusten For Med Vinden" is another acoustic piece with some bass picking, and "Geväret Lades Fram, Processen Blev Kort" is a 13-minute plus epic which is another of the best written songs here. The title track seals the album, at time driving and fierce, at times breaking for more of the band's trebly acoustic riffs.

Innerlig Förmörkelse is suitably raw, enough that fans of the Swedish Orthodox black metal might enjoy it, though thematically it is somewhat more nature inclined. All the instruments are present in the mix, but the album isn't bass heavy tone-wise. The result is a sharp stream of natural pagan imagery snorted right into your mind like a line of cocaine snow, or watching your blood ripple through a cold river. Though I enjoyed it, I do feel there is much potential for the band to surpass this. Half the album was superb but there were a few tracks which felt dull in places. Well worth the listen if you favor black metal that is melodic, graceful, sad, and atmospheric but still raging and fast.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

I feel like I’ve almost covered the depressive black metal genre to death, but still I come back wanting more each time. Sometimes I ask myself why when I have to sift through the rubble to come across something worthwhile of resurrecting amongst the junk, but when that is the case, I usually find that it is in these sorts of bands that the most reward comes from. Whether this is due to the fact that the band are such solid musicians that I cannot tear myself away, or whether it’s because I’ve spent so much time and effort sifting through tonnes of acts to come across one that doesn’t make me want to hack away at my own ears is another matter altogether, one which I cannot answer at this point in time. The line between good and evil is often blurred, making it all the more harder to find what I’m looking for. When bands start to use outside influences, the challenge becomes an uphill task. Whilst I feel like I’m sprinting towards the right direction, gravity takes hold and places me firmly on my backside when I come across bands like Happy Days who’re gaining all the recognition, for the wrong reasons, whilst bands like Sorgeldom are neglected in favour of closed minded criticism.

I firmly believe it is impossible to write an entire genre, or sub-genre off based on a few bad apples. Although it may be the case that there is one immense talent out of ten, I remind myself to remember that at least there is one to speak of and it is in this optimistic light that I venture onwards and upwards. With the discovery of Sorgeldom, that fine line between good and evil has reared its ugly head once again. Although it seems fairly obvious that this trio fit nicely into the depressive limelight, that isn’t the case when we peel back the exterior to find an experimental interior beneath the surface of a seemingly rigid beast. The production is the first thing I noticed. It packs one hell of a punch. It gives guitarist S. a cosmic environment with which to play in. He utilises this other worldly environment and plays to his advantage. Despite the crunching production, there is a lot of melody to be found beneath the layers of fuzzy distortion. Though it may sound like a lo-fi affair at first, the production is actually top notch and rather unsurprising given the bands influences, most notably the shoegaze division of music which often relies on trippy atmospherics with which to bury the music deep within.

Like the greatest novels, the further you delve into the story, the greater the reward is bound to be. Much the same can be said about Sorgeldom, a collaboration between three great minds. The guitars are like apples, bite down and feel that crunching sound send shivers down your spine. The atmospherics are littered with unobvious influences, as the aforementioned shoegaze comments might let you in on, but it is no secret that Sorgeldom are firmly rooted to black metal ties. From the deep screams of the vocalist, to the dynamic drumming, each element takes its influence from somewhere else and although it may seem as if this might be a miss-match of ideas, the style comes together nicely under the intensity of the production which gives a fantastically spaced out feel to the layered instrumentation. With these layers also comes a sense of clean instrumentation that I wouldn’t have expected, even though the introductory song is clean in itself, though instrumental starters are rarely a good example of what is to come. As shown with the spectacular ‘Geväret Lades Fram, Processen Blev Kort’, there can be a beneficial use of clean and harsh styles, even when these styles clash together, forming a juxtaposition of ideas that is both complex and simplistic at the same time.

I wouldn’t call this conventional black metal since it adheres to numerous sub-genres, including the atmospheric, depressive and perhaps the post-black style on occasions with the use of interspersed clean instrumentation, as mentioned on songs like ‘Geväret Lades Fram, Processen Blev Kort’ which stretch into eternity, pulling out a vast number of images and inserting these into the introspective minds of the listener who is greatly influenced by the mesmerising style of Sorgeldom. Though this record doesn’t feature the sorts of spaced out material that bands like Darkspace are known for, it has it’s own quirky methods of achieving the same sort of conclusion through intermingled distortion. Despite this distortion, which is never overwhelming, the bass is an audible force. Expect the unexpected in regards to the future of black metal when bands like Sorgeldom are prepared to mix it up by implementing shoegaze into their music. One thing this record has certainly taught me is that Frostscald records are on the way up with bands like this and Dråpsnatt. Wonderful.