Black metal's ability to constantly reinvent itself and transcend the sepsis of bland musical conformism has been, for me, one of its key assets. That is not to say every black metal band or album per se capably defies genre conventions to achieve and cultivate sounds or soundscapes that are highly divergent from the next one, but in general I don't think it's a great coincidence that the genre has been able churn out so many harrowing, innovative and effective practitioners on a level that would surpass, if not always dwarf, those produced by other genres' think-tanks. The variety and imaginative stretch, as often grim and nightmarish as it may be, (not necessarily a deficit according to my tastes) is undeniable. Yet this also invites the whole post-metal sub-genre into scrutiny, since the label is so often thrown under the black metal banner, yet features a myriad taxonomies of its own that often constitute great difficulty for the analyst's part to categorize. Boring semi-academic platitudes aside, Danish hopefuls have been one such band to offer such a caveat. While I find myself meddling over the authenticity of the atmospheric black metal tag as bequeathed by the M-A, their unique, desert-like brand of black metal has sold me consistently, spin after spin, giving credibility to my initial statement, to the extent that I no longer give a fuck whether I should term them 'black metal' or 'blackened gonzo avant-garde desert rock'.
Comparisons to the Norwegians avant-garde weirdos are justified. Granted, Eldjudnir does not swerve with the same wacky post-metal antics as The Virus That Shaped the Desert or their latest, Memento Collider, but swerve it does. Rather than the skedaddling waltzes of the Norwegians, Eldjudnir employ slow, intimate, distorted arpeggios and droning chord sequences that all fit into a mid-paced tempo. The bass lines here are fantastic: they gyrate effortlessly underneath the dissonant wave of chords, flowing out with jazzy, serpentine succor. What's unique about the Danes is that they seem to channel a sonic discordance that strikes a balance between the slower, somber undertakings of French bands like Deathspell Omega, Merrimack and Blut Aus Nord and the crepuscular, desert leanings of Virus or DHM with their later, more progressive offerings. The album, coupled with the haunting visual of the cover art, presents this image of some antiquated train running across a lone rail track in the midst of a nocturnal, desert landscape, with derelict buildings or scraps of human development peeping about the ghost train. The Danes are certainly not industrial, but the mournful jangles of the guitars evoke such an atmosphere, leaving a trail of abandoned sickness as the tracks groove along.
Another obvious selling point for me are the vocals: they come in a scree of varieties. The more traditional, raspy black metal rasps, which are delivered with great accord to the harrowing aura of the record, are prominent, but more than those I loved the absolutely haunting cleans, these ritualistic timbers stretching across the illimitable atmosphere the Danes have constructed. The title track employs a healthy portion of both, with titillating melodies accompanying the rasps and the choruses ballasted by a choir of harrowing cleans. This goes on to show how much and how successfully Eldjudnir enjoy experimenting vocally, even when their bizarre but consistent riff fodder retains a stylistic cohesion throughout. The cleans, as on ''Mimer'', are not unlike Opeth at their best, and pull at the listener's heart's strings as though with a pair of mechanized phantom hands. On top of that, the band is brazen enough to boast a series of female vocals, like on the excellent ''Skade'', and yet their delivery does not loosen at the seams, actually proving to amplify the crippling, strange dolor of the record.
Clocking at a mere 36 minutes, Eldjudnir is an album I've found hard to break my jones for. Consistent, funereal and never really a drag; there are some sequences in some tracks where I wasn't wholly enamored, but certainly given the the brevity of each track (of which there are 7) there isn't ground aplenty to commit a lot of faults here. My biggest gripe, therefore, may simply be that I could not sink my teeth sufficiently into the plateau of ideas and musical desertification which they rather wonderfully shaped, however well it was construed, both in terms of atmosphere and production. The Danes' style is such that it can merely puncture a highly marginal niche even inside the black metal market, a small place alongside the likes of Virus, Hail Spirit Noir, DHM, Voivod, and maybe the more sophisticated dissonance of the French black metal school, but that quaint eccentricity which they espouse is precisely why I've grown to enjoy this record so much. Being so close to penning their own scripture, one that exists outside of the generic borders of black metal, I can merely wear out the humdingers on this on repeat until a third album pops into existence, out from the jarring and solemn womb of the Danes' imagination, and stamp this record as one of the finer yields of a crop that has already proved 2016 to be a blessed harvest.
Highlights:
Skade
Yggdrassil
Eldjudnir
Hræsvelgr
Another obvious selling point for me are the vocals: they come in a scree of varieties. The more traditional, raspy black metal rasps, which are delivered with great accord to the harrowing aura of the record, are prominent, but more than those I loved the absolutely haunting cleans, these ritualistic timbers stretching across the illimitable atmosphere the Danes have constructed. The title track employs a healthy portion of both, with titillating melodies accompanying the rasps and the choruses ballasted by a choir of harrowing cleans. This goes on to show how much and how successfully Eldjudnir enjoy experimenting vocally, even when their bizarre but consistent riff fodder retains a stylistic cohesion throughout. The cleans, as on ''Mimer'', are not unlike Opeth at their best, and pull at the listener's heart's strings as though with a pair of mechanized phantom hands. On top of that, the band is brazen enough to boast a series of female vocals, like on the excellent ''Skade'', and yet their delivery does not loosen at the seams, actually proving to amplify the crippling, strange dolor of the record.
Clocking at a mere 36 minutes, Eldjudnir is an album I've found hard to break my jones for. Consistent, funereal and never really a drag; there are some sequences in some tracks where I wasn't wholly enamored, but certainly given the the brevity of each track (of which there are 7) there isn't ground aplenty to commit a lot of faults here. My biggest gripe, therefore, may simply be that I could not sink my teeth sufficiently into the plateau of ideas and musical desertification which they rather wonderfully shaped, however well it was construed, both in terms of atmosphere and production. The Danes' style is such that it can merely puncture a highly marginal niche even inside the black metal market, a small place alongside the likes of Virus, Hail Spirit Noir, DHM, Voivod, and maybe the more sophisticated dissonance of the French black metal school, but that quaint eccentricity which they espouse is precisely why I've grown to enjoy this record so much. Being so close to penning their own scripture, one that exists outside of the generic borders of black metal, I can merely wear out the humdingers on this on repeat until a third album pops into existence, out from the jarring and solemn womb of the Danes' imagination, and stamp this record as one of the finer yields of a crop that has already proved 2016 to be a blessed harvest.
Highlights:
Skade
Yggdrassil
Eldjudnir
Hræsvelgr
Rating: 85%
