No Wilderness Deep Enough

No Wilderness Deep Enough feels like a departure for Steve Von Till, yet radiates comforting familiarity. Nothing in isolation is particularly outside his wheelhouse, if anything he’s mixed sonic concoctions he’s previously kept separated. Steve has long been one of my favourite songwriters to come out of metal bands, and I think a lot of this has to do with that he doesn’t actually sound like a metal dude trying his hand at stumming an acoustic. Forget the kitschy “dark folk” many go for, Steve’s folk exudes the world-weary classic country-imbued Americana vibes of Townes Van Zandt and Gillian Wench. After a memorable debut drenched in Southern Gothic energy, he followed up with two excellent 70s country-indebted folk albums reminiscent of Townes Van Zandt and Neil Young’s more contemplative songs. With 2015’s knockout blow A Life Unto Itself , Steve both encapsulated everything he’s done up to that point while also reaching a little further. I wouldn’t hesitate to proclaim it as one of the great modern songwriter albums (an honour I’m not sure I’d extend to any other musician coming out of the metal scene). While it’s an album I’m sure I’ll always come back to, it felt like there was a finality to it. Where could he go from here? He’s been doing the same sort of folk for a while now and this is an album you just can’t follow up with something similar.

Blending the sounds he was capturing with the droning psychedelic ambience of Harvestman with his songwriter work felt kind of inevitable. He’s mused about it in interviews, “Night of the Moon” hinted at a marriage of the styles and, honestly, it seemed like the obvious route to spicing up his solo work. The music doesn’t really feel exactly like Harvestman, it lacks the overtly psychedelic vibes and moments of sun-drenched resonance. His approach reminds me of Nick Cave’s recent style– singing over Eno-inflected swirling ambient. It’s not a niche I necessarily want to see take off, but it’s something that a master songwriter with a strong lyrical prowess can pull off. Steve falls firmly in this camp, with the lush but distant ambient flush with strings, French horn and piano proving a nebulous backdrop for his reverb-laden croons.

Speaking of lyrics, this was another thing I was a bit worried about going forward. He’s been doing the whole dead-serious contemplative lyrics for a while and the whole stream of consciousness with mythological metaphor deal in Neurosis has been pushed to the point of diminished returns on the last two albums. I would love to see some of the narrative song writing many of his country/folk influences dabbled in. Seeing as he’s pushing deeper into the world of shrouded metaphor with a poetry book coinciding with the album, it doesn’t seem like this was to be. While Steve has also made no secret of his reverence for nature, this leans all in being comprised of poetic lyrics ruminating life through the lens of the natural world. While sometimes I wish he’d loosen up a little and sing some murder ballads, he is undeniably masterful at what he does and the sparse, contemplative lyrics fit perfectly with the similarly natured music.

His vocals carry the lyrics flawlessly. While I like the latest Nick Cave albums and it’s astonishing that someone with such a long career is still finding new sounds, I feel sometimes there’s a bit too much half-talking half-singing. Steve compliments the ambient with well thought out vocal melodies that sometimes hang back in melodic reverence and on album highlights like “The Old Straight Track” soar over the soundscape like a raven over deep wilderness. Like the last Neurosis album, Steve is more comfortable than ever with harmonizing with himself and it gives the vocals an added depth and richness. Never does it sound like he’s merely reciting poetry over keyboards.

The album’s roots lie in Steve’s wife’s family home in North Germany, which has remained in the family for half a century. Suffering insomnia and feeling inspired by the deep lines to history in a land scattered with megalithic monuments, he decided to mess around with ambient sounds rather than try to will himself to sleep (always a losing battle in my experience). With the work in its infancy, he didn’t really know what to make of it. It was hardly congruent with Harvestman vibes, but also a world away from what he was doing with his solo albums. He decided he’d get some real strings and French horns on the album, maybe add some real piano parts and see how things fleshed out. He hit up Randall Dunn, who also produced his last album. Dunn immediately agreed to partake in the project. However, he urged Steve to sing over it. Hesitantly, Steve agreed and would spend mornings with his coffee and notepad brainstorming lyrics and vocal melodies. In the end, even if No Wilderness Deep Enough isn’t his career highlight, it was a detour well worth making in a solo career where the time was nigh for some form of departure.