Expulsè

Russian black metal project Stielas Storhett has returned with their second full-length Expulsè, displaying an impressive maturity in their sound. Watching the band’s style evolve has been interesting: their debut Vandrer… was a bit rough around the edges and featured one too many cover songs, but at the same time it contained some moments of pure, atmospheric and haunting black metal bliss as well as several of their best tracks to date. Follow-up EP SKD was a bit of a head-scratcher, abandoning much of the debut’s ghostly atmosphere for a more open approach and slightly more progressive songwriting. Expulsè thankfully brings back some of the uniquely evocative riffing that worked so well on the debut album while retaining the more modern tone of the previous EP and adding a few new wrinkles to the band’s sound.

Much of the sound from SKD has carried over to this album - the production is fairly clear, and the foggy, haunting tone of the debut is largely gone. What’s interesting is what Stielas Storhett is able to accomplish without the aid of the usual fuzzy black metal production values. A few tracks are rather lackluster in the same way that SKD was, but several others showcase the riffing style that made Vandrer… so appealing. Songwriter Damien T.G. manages to spin melodies and riffs that transcend the album’s production and create a similarly dark and tragic atmosphere to that of the debut. The forlorn melodic lines that color tracks like ‘Buried By Storm and Eternal Darkness’ and ‘Angel of Death’ are excellent and wholly unique to this band.

It’s a shame that the whole album doesn’t maintain the atmosphere that some of the better songs manage to achieve, but Stielas Storhett has shown us that he likes to experiment, and there’s plenty of that here. The last couple tracks of the album are a prime example, with saxophone making an appearance in several places. It might be interesting to fans of more progressive metal but it didn’t do much for me. The combination of bluesy lead guitar work and whispered vocals on a few tracks is also vaguely reminiscent of Sweden’s Shining. There’s enough on Expulsè to keep me excited about this band, but Vandrer… still remains the essential album from Stielas Storhett’s catalog.

(Originally written for Musical Warfare)