Unortheta

Iceland's black metal scene has been pumping out albums of immense quality at an alarming rate for the last few years, and Zhrine's debut album Unortheta not only instantly cements itself as a classic of the scene, but also as one of the most interesting current black metal albums. Zhrine revel at the altar of dissonance, but use this as a tool to further enhance a sound that's already has quality musicianship and songwriting in abundance rather than a pale shroud to hide behind as many dissonant bands do. Painstakingly measured in its approach, this is one of dissonant black metal's finest hours (or 39 minutes if you want to be pedantic).

While Zhrine is first and foremost a black metal band, to just leave it at that would be leaving out a large part of the picture. As is also the case with pretty much every other dissonant black metal band to ever exist, Zhrine frequently get compared to Deathspell Omega. Not that there aren't some comparisons to make, but it would be much more pertinent to mention Ulcerate. It wouldn't be exactly fair to call them Ulcerate but black metal and leave it at that, but that description does give a reasonably accurate overview of the template they work with. This reminds me of two different Ulcerate albums for different reasons. The first is Destroyers of All, where Ulcerate decided to ditch the jumpy schizophrenia of Everything is Fire and take a more slow-burning atmospheric approach to their sound. They didn't exactly go all post-metal on us or anything, but they did tread along the fringes of that territory. While certainly not one to shy away from incendiary blast beats or confrontational riffs, Unortheta is just dripping with bittersweet atmosphere. There are lots of resonating clean sections, often with excellent bass lines that slowly ooze like molasses. This also reminds of Ulcerate's latest opus, Shrines of Paralysis. This isn't exactly laden with catchy hooks and sing-a-long choruses, but Ulcerate did streamline (just to clarify, I don't mean this in a derogatory sense) their classic sound into a much more accessible and easily digestible package. It still hit hard and no one in their right mind could accused it of being lightweight, but it certainly wasn't the insane clusterfuck (in a good way) of their earlier work. Zhrine very much echo this, with while being quite dissonant and intense, are not particularly inaccessible for this sort of thing and have songwriting that flows quite smoothly.

But enough about Ulcerate. Zhrine aren't just a clone band with a twist. While possessing a very coherent sound throughout, they cover lots of ground with their riffs. They've got blistering tremolo onslaughts, slow burners for tension, big chunky riffs that lean more on the death metal side of things as well as continental plate shifting doom lurches. More often than not, these are filtered through a dissonant lens. Although, what I really dig about their use of dissonance, is they don't go overboard and use it very tastefully. There's this big riff in "Empire" (you'll know the one when you hear it) that remains infectiously catchy despite its dissonant veneer. Reviewing Unortheta and failing to mention the rhythm section would be a great travesty. The drumwork is truly excellent - while the dude can blast away like no one's business and hammer double bass 'till the cows come home, the most exiting aspect of his playing is his diversity on the kit. He pummels out lots of war-like tom beats and lays down a great array of intricate cymbal work. The bass is outstanding, smooth and agile in atmospheric passages, but also jolting and frantically snaking in more aggressive moments. Zhrine plays around with tempo quite bit, and this works for the same reason that the interplay between loud dissonant tremolo outbursts and melancholy-tinged lush atmospherics work so well - superb songwriting. Zhrine really knows how to sequence things, when to ebb and when to flow. They know how to make everything fall into place exactly where it should.

The combination of dissonance and atmosphere is a hallmark of Iceland's black metal scene, but Zhrine don't particularly sound like what you'd expect from the small country. While bands often just flirt with dissonance, they make it perhaps the most definitive aspect of their work. It also wouldn't be unreasonable to say that their atmospheric side is more fully developed than most. The dissonance itself adds a smoky luster to the atmosphere, billowing and snaking like opium smoke in a den of ill-repute. Ushering in a fair amount of death metal into their vile fold as well a reasonable amount of doom, Unortheta has found a winning formula. Zhrine can easily count themselves as one of Iceland's finest.