[When I add labels to the Metal Labels on Bandcamp page I usually scan their releases looking for anything interesting I might have missed. The reviews on The Metal Archives are a great help when doing this: a couple of great reviews means an album I should probably check out. With this series I'd like to share some of my finds - in this edition we feature two expansive takes on black metal from Lifeforce Records and Shaytan Productions, and a long lost death/doom classic finally available on Southern Lord Recordings]
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Fjoergyn’s sound is extremely avant-garde and unlike any other band in existence. At its core, it is still very much rooted in black metal conventions but there is so much more to their sound. The standard tremolo picked riffs with non-stop blast beats are ever present on this album but when the songs slow down, the music becomes much more interesting. This is where Fjoergyn excels with absolutely gorgeous and incredibly haunting guitar melodies like the one in the middle of the closing track “Freiheit” that will make your jaw drop. It is not just the guitar melodies though. This album contains serious riffage of the fast and heavy varieties that really drive the more conventional sections of songs like “Leviathan.” The band also makes excellent use of symphonics and orchestrations, including moments of exquisite violin, which adds a lot of atmosphere to this album. [read SlayerDeath666's full review here.]
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Epos starts off starts off with the ambient sounds of small waves lapping on the shore of a well known lake in Kyrgyzstan known as Issyk-Kul (in the Kyrgyz language means “warm lake”).
Issyk-Kul is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, but never freezes. This aspect of the lake is reflected on this album: the production is actually of dark warmth, an almost “milky” guitar sound is clearly audible, and somehow the overall crispness also retains this character. I found this to be a very strong aspect of this recording which lends Epos quite a unique atmosphere as far as Black Metal production values go. [read Hubster's full review here.]
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Gammelsaeter’s vocals very between soft female droning to tireless growls that do justice to the death genre; this isn’t your operatic or goth vocals that are all the trend these days, but the droning of frozen, inevitable doom. This is the real deal: Serene, raw, and ugly as needed and when needed. While I like a good singer as much as the next guy, some types of music require the under produced, dragged screaming into the void, type of rawness; this delivers. The drums pound away, not a means of keeping the beat so much as to hammer Gammelsaeter’s vocals and O’Malley’s guitar chords home. Maybe that’s how they chose the group's name; the drums, vocals, and guitar jointly if methodically hammer you into a senseless empty vessel. [read Metalich's full review here.]
I have listened to it a work the last few days, and it's a fantastic album. A very nice blend of styles indeed.
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