Review:

on 2011-02-20 CharlesMartel Said:

One of the reasons why I don't look towards reading reviews of music to gauge whether an album is worth checking out is because a lot of would-be professional music reviewers have a tendency towards pomposity and verbosity in almost equal measure. Prog rock reviews tend to be the worst, but metal reviews are usually not that far behind. For instance, if I had tried to ascertain whether Agalloch's "The Mantle" was worth checking out, what help would have been afforded me by this loquacious nonsense by a certain Roberto from Maelstrom -

It seems that the band's members are in the midst of a certain maturing process; amongst the original youngling (sic) frustration and rather abstract, simplistic feeling of melancholic anger, appears a more compromised, settled approach, in a way forcedly (sic) accepting the unbearable situation of human existence, making an attempt of expanding (sic) the methods of thinking, adapting ways of dealing with the gloomy state of mind, trying to trace the longed matter (sic) of transferring their present being to a dimension beyond time, to capture the elusive ideas of immortality, of consistence, of God.

Sheer logorrhoea! Never mind the simple mistakes in vocabulary; never mind the awful grammar; never mind the fact that this is one single sentence; just what does it mean? It would appear that this guy's main purpose is to try to impress you with his imagination and erudition, in which case he has failed miserably. Reviews like this fail to tell me anything about this album? Based on this alone, I would steer clear of this album but thankfully, I do not place much stock in reviews alone. I prefer to listen to the music, downloaded, and come to an opinion of my own.

It may surprise to some, but I actually like this album. It is, simply put, a fusion of modern folk music with black metal. This takes place on every level - vocally, instrumentally and visually. There is a mix of both normal vocals and growling, but thankfully the latter at no point overpowers the mix. Indeed, the growling is little more than a laryngitic whisper most of the time and therefore can actually add to the effect without putting me off, which is the normal consequence of growling. Indeed, it is not often I will say that about metal vocals. In terms of the instrumentation, it manages to convey just the sort of atmosphere the band clearly set out to do. The tracks are paced just right and with a good mix of acoustic and electric guitars. It may not be hummable, but it does hold your attention. Tracks such as "Odal" have a certain, indefinable compulsion about them, whereas other tracks, such as "The Hawthorne Passage" drill repetition into you with precision guitars. Visually, the cover and the inside sleeve sum it up - an autumnal feel to the album.

What I don't get is why this is called metal. Take away the growling and you've basically got a post-rock creation. This is genre-bending at its most innovative. The band have moved away from dense and intricate metal and into something much more emotionally expressive. If metal has a mainstream, then this is pulling away from it. It deserves a good listen and definitely has a place on quiet evenings when the wind is howling outside.

And did you notice? I didn't even say haunting once!
Rating: 7/10