Metachthonia

If there's one word to describe Thrawsunblat's third full length offering, that word is atmosphere. There's so much to get lost in and a full hour to do so. The muddy production matches the atmosphere perfectly, allowing the instruments to form a thick, impenetrable wall of sound yet still remain catchy and emotional. The composition is flawless; clean vocals and soft passages are placed exactly where the atmosphere needs changing to tell an epic tale of adventure, sorrow and discovery. The best example of this comes at the end of Track Four. Hypochthonic Remnants is one of the more intense songs on the album, telling of a "post-terranean vastland" where humanity has been taken over by technology and lost its touch with nature. But in the final moments, the mood completely changes as a slower ambience takes us to a peaceful forest where we can finally "shrug off the wires and in cool cedar air, think with forgotten clarity." This is one of the most chilling moments on any metal album I've heard; every time I hear it, it takes me through the emotions of finding solace in a bleak age, of forgetting the woes of modern times and through nature remembering what humans are meant to be.

The way harsh and clean vocals are contrasted on Metachthonia is simply astounding. One moment you'll be immersed in a dark, menacing atmosphere supported by fast riffs and despairing, blackened shrieks, and the next you'll be singing along to a catchy folk chorus. In fact, this goes beyond just vocals. It's incredible how flawlessly Thrawsunblat combine black metal riffs, soft folk passages and even the occasional few seconds of silence to serve as a transition between movements.

When some types of metalheads hear the words 'atmospheric black', they think of a boring slog of an album where one track can't be told apart from another. Every song on Metachthonia, however, has at least one element to make it stand out from the rest. Examples include the second movement of She Who Names the Stars, a verse which grows and grows in intensity, constantly on the verge of a dramatic climax but not quite getting there (which makes it so much more satisfying when it does, about four lines after you first thought it was going to) and Rae Amitay's stunning vocal contributions in Dead of Winter. Seriously, these nine minutes alone make me respect Rae as the best female vocalist in metal and one of the best overall. Part of me wishes she'd sung on more parts of this album than just two movements of track 3, but I realise that would reduce the impact her vocals have, so it's probably best her contributions were limited in the way they were. Finally, In Mist We Walk contains a flurry of triumphant solos, ending the album on an epic note.

To conclude, I firmly believe Metachthonia is one of the top five metal albums ever recorded, an essential listen for any fan of black metal. Do yourself a favour and listen to this masterpiece.

I find it difficult to articulate just how much I love this band, and particularly this album. In the few months since I found it, I have spent 75+ hours listening to Thrawsunblat on Spotify alone, and most of it was spent listening to this album. In fact, my desire to review it is the reason I finally bit the bullet and made an account in the first place.

I found this band through their predecessor, Woods of Ypres. But in contrast to the dark, depressing subject matter of Woods, Thrawsunblat's lyrics are incredibly inspiring. If I were to make music, their lyrics are what I would strive to match.

Musically, this album is perfect in its imperfection. The harsh vocals are raw, and the production finds an excellent balance between clean acoustics and thick, distorted electric guitars. Each and every song has parts that lack the melodic, powerful qualities of my favorite sections (which usually fall toward the end of the songs). However, these sections are perfectly placed in that they create a breathless buildup to an awe-inspiring finale. They add to, rather than detract from, the overall quality of the album.

The concept of the album revolves around the earth being in a "metachthonic" age - essentially a modern era of electricity and technology, in which mankind is disconnected from our roots in nature, and the quest to rediscover this connection.

Stylistically, the album is about as original as anything I've heard in recent times. It's an amalgamation of melodic black and folk metal, and yet the folk influences are more in the atmosphere and message of the songs, rather than the musical style, if that makes sense. The songs convey a folk "feel" without taking all that much musically from other folk music or folk metal. This is certainly a step away from the much more direct folk influences on their previous album, Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings.

Each and every song on this album is relatively long, ranging from 8-11 minutes. Rather than a strict verse-chorus-verse structure, the songs tend to follow a linear progression. A particular favorite is "Dead of Winter," which is easily my favorite song of all time. Rae Amitay's vicious vocals are an incredible edition; I certainly hope to hear more of her in future albums. The cleans are bouncy and odd, the harsh sections at the middle and end, which are separated by an acoustic interlude and feature Rae's vocals, are simply unbelievable. Everything from the lyrics to the vocals and riffs are too powerful and inspiring for words to describe.

This album reminds me of the creepypasta story about the song that people become so obsessed with that they off themselves because they can't find anything else like it and can't listen to the song itself. The difference being that for me, while no other music can compare, I can listen to this over and over again, which I most certainly do. It's downright criminal that this band is so obscure. Well fucking done, Thrawsunblat, and I hope to hear much more from you in the future.

This is definitely something I had to approach with tempered expectations. Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings is probably a top 5 all-time album for me at this point, so I didn't really expect anything they followed up with to top it right off the bat. I also kept my predictions neutral regarding what the album would sound like. There are so many different directions Metachthonia could have taken, some being much better than others. Black metal? Folk metal? Eluveitie styled folk/rock/pop/whateverthefuck? The stakes are high.

Thankfully, Thrawsunblat opted not to take the lattermost direction with their sound, instead going with a more drawn-out, melodic black metal approach. If I were to compare this to a Woods of Ypres album, funny enough, it would probably be Woods III. "View of a Million Trees" is probably the one song off Wanderer that sounds the most similar to Metachthonia overall. My first instinct was that Metachthonia was going to be a simple expansion on that theme, but fortunately there is much more to this. Although the identity of the band is still intact, almost every aspect of the band has been slightly tweaked in some way so as to give this a distinct flavor that past albums have not had.

Right off the bat, the most immediately noticeable difference is in the production. On Wanderer, the production was crisp and airtight and that is most certainly not the case here. To call the production "raw" wouldn't be entirely accurate, but there is a certain thinness and roughness to the sound of Metachthonia that band hasn't used before. You can hear the inhales and the slight waverings in pitch of the vocalist much clearer, despite the vocals feeling more in the background of the mix overall. Compared to previous albums, this production highlights the microscopic mistakes in the vocals. In a way, though, that allows them to sound much more natural and in tune with the album's atmosphere than if they had been super-polished. The drums are felt much more here, lush and nearly overpowering in the mix. Thundering double-bass is present frequently, being the glue holding the bloated, 8-10 minute songs together. These elements alone already make the album feel somewhat rushed, but the songwriting has a few patches that are indicative of this as well. There are a few times (most notably on "In Mist We Walk") where the song just straight-up stops for a second before changing riffs. There are a few long pauses that create huge gaps in the songs, and sometimes it has me wondering why they didn't just break the songs up into smaller, maybe 4-5 minute tunes. What makes this album incredible, though, is that the rough, patchwork nature of the songwriting and production is not its weakness, but it strongest feature. It's what gives the album this atmosphere that calls to the Maritime forests, but still stays grounded in solid riffs .

I can separate this as much from Wanderer as much as I want, perhaps even rationalize why Wanderer is a better, more polished album overall, but here's the thing: none of that shit matters. Metachthonia is clearly its own beast, taking on a character that separates itself not only from the band's past work, but from the sterility of modern atmospheric folk/black as a whole. This doesn't really jig in the same way as that stuff (and even their past work) tends to do. The acoustic interludes are not standalone tracks here, but instead have been woven into the metal parts. All the emotion in the melodies is much more genuine and piercing, no small thanks to the rawer production. The mixture of this vibrant melody with a heavy blastbeat base in the drums is something I have long been searching for in black metal ever since I heard the upbeat, fiery romanticism of early Spite Extreme Wing. Most Agallochy metal comes close, but it's a bit too composed and self-aware--Metachthonia has this youthful zeal to it that immediately sets it apart. The drums are what primarily gives this album the energy it has--Rae Amitay flows between black metal beats and a more laid-back rockin' style almost seamlessly, unifying the album amidst the patchwork songwriting. Also, didn't realize she was a Berklee graduate until now? Damn, it shows.

I also see a few similarities to the more pleasant strains of Icelandic black metal (Joel Violette mentioned Dynfari in an interview) but nothing that constitutes a more passing influence. The natural character of the riffs brings a bit of Forefather to mind, but Metachthonia signifies more than just a folk metal influence--this is a whole new direction for the genre. I've always loved the balance between melody and extremity in folk metal, but I absolutely HATE the reliance on, well, folk melodies. The superficial "let's get drunk and shit" vibe doesn't help, either. I like getting drunk and shit, but somebody's gotta tell Korpiklaani that the idea should be to make music that's good while you're drinking, not music that's only good when you're drunk. Instead, what I look for is not music that tries to connect with something like drinking culture, because alcohol is so embdedded in so many cultures that it is no longer unique. I want something that actually seems like it is seriously trying to represent the land it came from through its sound. Thrawsunblat already did that on Wanderer of the Continent of Saplings (better than any album I've heard has) and they could have gone the easy route and just aped that success. Instead, they went in a completely different direction and created a new face for Canadian folk metal, on top of an amazing sound to back it up.

Everybody's been desperately looking for someone to step up and fill the void Agalloch left with their demise. Forget Oak Pantheon and Gallowbraid*, Thrawsunblat are the true heirs to the throne.

*--I'm just kidding, Jake. Please release an album soon. I've been waiting for so long.