EP Review: Darkentries - The Make Believe

If you've been paying attention to modern metal of late, you will have noticed that most bands not besotted with retro, are pushing their music forwards with varied attempts at blurring the lines between genres. Some, of course, are taking the concept to the extreme by fusing those lines into a vast wall of sound. South Carolina's Darkentries, contentedly sat on Kylesa's record label, are one of the latter and have drawn influence from such quarters as sludge, hardcore, doom and post-metal to create a blackened, nihilistic cacophony.

What stands out the most here is the production. Recorded with Kris Hilbert at the curiously-titled Legitimate Business Studio, with the mastering taking place over at Audiosiege, the overall impression is of a vital, raw mix loaded with enough echo to bring it back from the brink. Carefully layered within, the powerful, mud-flinging guitars take pride of place at the forefront, the drums sit in the middle distance, and the vocal is left to rant and rave from somewhere out back. It's an odd experience to discover that the gapping between the levels mean you can actually pick out the points where Hampton Dodd's vocals start phasing. Of course, it is exactly because the band don't utilise every inch of space that, inside the sections where instrument drop-outs occur, it all begins to feel slightly removed from the present. Whilst a shame that slight fault does leave them much room for experimentation - hopefully more so when they finally get round to issuing that full-length.

Digging down into the tracks, 'TV Fuzz' shifts from a gentile guitar introduction into pounding black doom. With the vocal lurching between one that pitches mournful shoegaze and another that seems ensconced in inflicting post-hardcore chaos, the effect is intense and shattering. Though 'Honey Eater' and the stunning 'Feedback Funeral' stay on the same path, they muscle up every element. The vocal sinks deeper to create a more resonant, more forbidding atmosphere and finds a red-raw animosity when it gets its 'core on. Even the sludge-packing guitars wind it all down until the buzzing begins to vibrate at the back of your brain. What stands out, is that somewhere amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing, you'll hear strong hints at the kind of ambient, miserabilist post-hardcore peddled by bands like The Elijah or Devil Sold His Soul.

Upping their game, 'I'm Tired Of Being Awake' finds joy in warping the attack; picking up the desert and blowing it back in our faces. In these mere three minutes they find room to echo the emotional, death-addled contortions of Ihsahn and even time to tap out some Mastodon-esque string progressions. '1200-S' is their chthonic monster, emerging from its abyss to rip out some suitably alien roars and illicit agonising screams form its prey. There are also vast open power chords, gutsy basslines and heart-pumping chugs to get on board with. Lyrically, you'll not find much to sink your teeth into with this EP, save perhaps for 'Feedback Funeral' and that repeating disembodied scream of "just bloody kill me" or in the wild-eyed chant of "paradise, paradise" awaiting in '1200-S'.

Understandably short, impossibly indulgent, strangely exhilarating. In a sense, this kind of carefully-constructed lunacy is exactly what we, as disciples of extreme metal, crave. It's music that breaks barriers, retaining an essence of ancient majesty but remaining unafraid to let things get a little ugly and a little twisted. Easy listening this is not, but then this is, in effect, Darkentries' crack at sonic catharsis. Their ball, their rules. The Make Believe represents their own honest attempt to define what modern heavy metal means to them. It will be very interesting to see what kind of unholy noises they can conjure up in the future.

Also online @ Scratch The Surface = http://www.scratchthesurface-webzine.com/2014/03/darkentries-make-believe-review.html

Album Review: Ihsahn – Das Seelenbrechen

“It’s true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.” Abigail van Buren’s quote is especially apt when applied to Ihsahn’s solo career. Having spent his youth blowing us away with metal giants Emperor, he has become ever more legendary since. His thirst for exploring the outer reaches of his beloved black arts has resulted in what is, arguably, his finest material – his A-trilogy, in particular, has resulted in him being equally lauded amongst lovers of the aggressive and more passive ends of the metal spectrum. With last year’s Eremita and now, Das Seelenbrechen, his latest album, it seems he has really been throwing caution to the wind so you’d better buckle up for this.

Translated as “the soul breaking”, the title refers to Nietzsche’s thoughts on the self-destructive nature of humanity, so it’s no surprise to find it continuing where his Nietzsche-inspired Eremita left off. What’s new here is the all-consuming darkness that he, in tandem with Leprous’ Tobias ØrAndersen, have managed to generate in Ihsahn’s Norwegian studio. What they have created is a series of sprawling, almost cinematic soundscapes that seem as organic as they are industrial. With all but the minimalist of jazzy overtones dropped and fearless songwriting employed we get a vast array of crepuscular tones that seem to drag you deeper and deeper into the pervasive shadows of the man’s bottomless imagination.

As a consequence, progression through the album isn’t as straight-forward, as on previous ones, with a real hotchpotch of ideas thrown at us. It is a zig-zagging journey that takes us from the vitriolic black death of “Regen” and “NaCl”, past the jarringly smooth trip-beat of “Pulse”, down the drum avalanches of the “Tacit” twins before we are finally dumped in the slow-moving lakes where “M” and “Sub-Ater” reside. Along the way we find ourselves experiencing his usual combination of scathing and hushed vocal, but here it is all threaded through a mixture of effects with battering drums and guitars and it is definitely not the unerringly cohesive experience that we may have been used to. Certainly, the doom-laden “M”, the noisome “Tacit 2″, the industrial wasteland of “See” and the disconcertingly unconnected build of “Rec” feel out of place here – like random, unfinished thoughts that cry out for more than just the weird loops and patterns they hang off.

There’s still plenty that does fit this abominable construction of Ihsahn’s and monsters like “Regen”, “NaCl”, “Sub-Alter” and even the panic-stricken rumble of “Tacit” will burrow in deep, blotting out the light, forcing introspection upon the voyeur. There’s so much here that feels like it could have burst forth from a future Opeth if they had stayed the path. This is them but taken to a whole new level of macabre.

Ever since the completion of After, it feels a little like Ihsahn has struggled to find a solid direction and Das Seelenbrechen, coming just a year after his last, certainly seems a trifle lost. His songwriting prowess cannot be doubted, so perhaps he has just rushed his thought processes this time. It’s a small error of judgement that you wouldn’t usually associate with a man of his experience. The wine may, indeed, be a little corked this time round but it doesn’t mean its vintage isn’t shining through.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/10/ihsahn-das-seelenbrechen-candlelight/

Album Review: Hexvessel - No Holier Temple

Hexvessel love trees. It’s quite clear that the “Temple” in the title of their sophomore album is referring to all things nature and, in particular, the life cycles of those tall, knotty skyscrapers themselves. Mat McNerney and his “Death Magicians” have moved on from their Dawnbearer debut and are taking their mystical folk music into some pretty dark, haunting places and on trips that may (or may not) have involved prolonged episodes of mushroom-munching.

There’s still a strong acoustic folk vibe going on with big plays coming from sax (“Woods To Conjure”), violin and piano (“Wilderness Is) and even didgeridoo (“Elegy To Goyahkla”), but they also unveil moments that will see you referencing black metal, and a decaying velocity that wraps its outstretched arms around the genre of doom. The opening, wildly self-indulgent, spoken passage outlining the glory of “Heaven And Earth Magic” sets the more solemn tone whilst passages of crystal clear, eulogising vocal plugged with stronger harmonies, particularly noticable in “His Portal Tomb” set one in mind of the work of Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy). They are rich in melody and travel lightly along a gentle cadence. Around them is layered the sort of music that could be described as possessing a certain Beatles-y charm.

In and out of the subtle shades of potency, those that evoke the music of Ihsahn and Opeth comes something else. Tracks like the 10-minute “His Portal Tomb” and the 13-minute “Unseen Sun” that see the band happily ringing in the changes with warm, fuzzed guitar cracking out those metallic elements. They, in turn, ignite the doom fuse for those that didn’t even realise it was there all along. More twists await in the form of the cabaret wake-up call of “Are You Coniferous?” and the addictive, Levellers-esque ceremonial melodies of “Sacred Marriage”.

Ultimately, though, there is just so much music here that fails to capture the heart in the same way that a small portion of the songs do. It’s always a disappointment to hear so much falling short of hitting the mark that the standard-bearers set. The opening groundwork, so grindingly laid out, is just too weak to support the grit that the back end of the album displays. There’s way too many pompous passages of spoken word; poetic and thought-provoking, for sure, but completely energy-sapping. The fact they’ve covered a track (“Your Head Is Reeling”, one of the album’s better ones) by a band called Ultimate Spinach speaks volumes about them. Hexvessel’s exploration of the connective possibilities of their humble folk music is certainly impressive and No Holier Temple is a definite step forward but they need to stop sucking the life out of their music.

Also online (with extras) @ Ave Noctum =  http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/09/hexvessel-no-holier-temple-svart-records/

Album Review: Ihsahn – Eremita

Dio’s “Rainbow In The Dark”, Iron Maiden’s “The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner”, Metallica’s “One”; from metal’s first tentative footsteps, bands have sung songs, constructed albums and gifted themselves names based around the theme of isolation. Having completed his “A”-trilogy, comprising (The) Adversary, AngL and After, Ihsahn now turns his attention to the subject and, unsurprisingly, he appears to have rediscovered a connection to his muse, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Over the years, the presence of the influential German philosopher, the self-professed “hermit of Sils-Maria”, has been keenly felt, littering Ihsahn’s work as both solo artist and Emperor frontman. The album title alone (Eremita being Latin for “hermit”) would have been enough to tip us off, but the man himself is there, upside-down, on the front cover. Most tellingly, though, it is the emotion-doused content that seals the deal.

As a solo artist, Ihsahn has always been quick to seek the input of others and this time round he has called on the assistance of guitarist Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore), drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen (Leprous) and teased vocal performances from his wife Heidi S. Tveitan (Starofash), Einar Solberg (Leprous) and Devin Townsend. Also, it’s no surprise to see Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia) on mixing duties again as Ihsahn had admitted to having trouble getting the sound he wanted without him – “Originally my plan was to mix it myself, as I did with the first two albums, but I just had to throw the towel in and get Jens to do it”.

With After having broken new ground with its delicate touch and ornately progressive, open construction, Eremita notably takes a couple of large steps backwards into the shadows. “There’s some full-blown black metal stuff on there”, warns Ihsahn. “There’s some jazz-influenced stuff and there’s some progressive stuff. There’s some really fast stuff and some really dark stuff.” The lyrical content is definitely both dark and oppressive, matching the conjured bleak and forbidding soundscapes. With Ihsahn’s paint-stripper-gargling larynx regularly seeing action we get lycanthropic pained howls that come direct from his tortured soul. It all begins to hark back to some of Emperor’s final outpourings. In this morbid place, the jazz saxophone plays less of a significant role in the chaos – instead, the returning Jørgen Munkeby chooses to languish within; to merely dot the i’s and cross the t’s of the hermit.

Of his guests, surprisingly it is Devin Townsend, naturally eager to repay Ihsahn’s own guest spot, who seems to have made the biggest of impacts on the man here. The throbbing pulse of “The Paranoid” and more intuitive moments of “Introspection” echo parts of Devin’s own Deconstruction. The former track’s deep groove and enigmatically rotating lyrics – “the shame feeds the anger feeds the shame feeds the anger feeds the shame” – could even mark it out as the debauched, blacker cousin of “Juular”.

Eremita is a transformational album that can turn from sullen acceptance, of the kind that afflicts both “Catharsis” and the ugly, horror-movie synth melodramatics of “Grief”, to become something more approaching a grim determination for “Something Out There” and “The Grave”. Then there is the lunatic element; tracks such as the desperately posturing and over-reaching “Departure” and the far more-likeable “The Eagle And The Snake” that hammer in a whole host of twisted shapes; strong, angular changes both oblique and acute. The pair are mazes that you will constantly find yourself getting lost in. The absorbing and wildly meandering guitar solo and blasts of discordant sax that lurk in the latter are the mere cherries on top.

Comparing Eremita to his last release, Ihsahn has said it is “not as joyful” and “a lot more claustrophobic” and it is most certainly both those things. Predictably, it’s an album that craves its own isolation. So lock the door, slam on the cans and buckle up. It’s one wild, nightmarish ride that Nietzsche, himself, would no doubt have begrudgingly approved of.

Also online @ The NewReview (with video preview) = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/ihsahn-eremita