I is the debut album from Scotland’s Fuath, the black metal project of Andy Marshall (who is also known as the mastermind behind Saor) and although it’s a decent enough listen, it doesn’t really offer anything new to the table – it’s just a somewhat standard black metal release with nothing to really set it apart from the crowd.
The atmosphere to the four-track release is nothing short of stunning, and although the music may not be in crisp and in perfect clarity, it doesn’t detract much from the piece as a whole. The long guitar lines add a good amount of ambience to it all and the vocals are used to great effect – the instrumentation is given more of a central role, with the vocals just being injected here and there, and the balance works.
However, on the other hand, there isn’t much variety between the songs, as they all sound rather similar to each other, so at times it does feel a little difficult to differentiate between one track to the next – it’s almost like the album is one continuous track and although that works in some instances, it doesn’t quite pay off with I.
I isn’t a bad release, but on the other hand it isn’t the most exciting of listens. It’s certainly worth checking out, but don’t go in expecting any surprises.
6/10
