You’d never think that a genre with a reputation for being hellish noise would so readily adopt jazzier elements into its necrotic bosom. Sure, now with it’s million derivative types, but when it’s true Norwegian stuff there are questions to be asked. Anyway there’s a lot to be said for brass in black metal, while almost comical (much like the genre,) it’s bound to upset purists much in the same way that Fleurety or even Solefald did. While Gravdal, for all the posturing on embodying the true Norwegian ethos in the new albums’ press release, don’t deviate much from the traditional genre tropes they do break a few conventions of the once mighty genre.
With all that said Gravdal’s latest is a tight black metal album with abstract tendencies. The artistic child of a social movement it shirks from many of the genres’ founding mistakes. Exchanging them for vehement passages that infer credibility to the genre as music. While the intention of the tracks are so well articulated the raw emotion that gave the genre such an endearing spirit is lost. Technically it’s marvelous but it’s not running from the light as it’s got darkness on cue by shifting the proverbial curtains of doom. Bourgeois curtains… of doom.
Adding to the prestige Kadaverin has a healthy supporting cast of fellow black metal rollers from bands such as Satyricon, Taake, SAHG, The Ruins Of Beverast, Seven Impale and Orkan on the blot, with lyrics written by V’gandr of Helheim and Taake. Yet while the names are there, their identity as artists isn’t, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it gives the impression that they’re diverse musicians who can collaborate effectively to create something coherent. Which is essentially what Gravdal’s third piece is – a coherent tale of corpse paint and guitars in the woods.
8/10
