By: Daniel Jackson
Album Type:
Full Length
Date Released:
21/08/2015
Label: Relapse
Records
At this juncture, Myrkur has proven to be capable of material that
is truly special, with the sort of vivid musical imagination welcome in any
genre, metal being no exception. What’s most exciting is what an even deeper
exploration of this kind of folkish black metal, rich with creativity might
yield a couple of years from now.
‘M’ CD//LP//DD track listing:
1. Skøgen Skulle Dø
2. Hævnen
3. Onde Børn
4. Vølvens Spådom
5. Jeg er Guden, I
er Tjenerne
6. Nordlys
7. Mordet
8. Byssan Lull
9. Dybt i Skoven
10. Skaði
11. Norn
Myrkur is:
Myrkur
| Piano, guitars, vocals
Teloch
| Bass & additional guitars
Myrvoll
| Drums
Guests:
Ole-Henrik
Moe | Íslensk fiðla, hardingfele & violin
Håvard
Jørgensen | Acoustic guitar
Tone
Reichelt | Horn
Martin
Taxt | Tuba
Chris
Amott | Additional guitars on "Mordet"
The Review:
When
originally sitting down to write this review, the first two hundred-plus words
of it came out as an angry tirade directed at anyone expressing the opinion
that Myrkur being a woman is a detriment to the
music, or are saying anything about “hipster metal” or “metal tourism”. In the
interest of addressing the “issue” but not letting it overrun the review I’ll
just say that if a woman making metal music bothers you: you’re an idiot. If
you’re worried about metal tourism: shut the fuck up. I can guarantee you’ve
failed your carefully constructed “metal” persona every day of your life in
some way or another just by living your life as anyone would. Enough.
With
that out of the way, ‘M’ is an
always good and often great album. The improvement between last year’s
self-titled EP and this year’s debut full length is substantial. In my review of the ‘Myrkur’ EP last year, I essentially said that while there was
promise, Myrkur wasn’t quite “there” yet. With ‘M’, Myrkur
arrives fully-realized, and much more well-rounded. It’s by no means a perfect
album, but it musically satiates my thirst for music in the style Ulver’s ‘Bergtatt’,
which Ulver themselves have no intention of
revisiting. That isn’t to discount Myrkur’s own
inventiveness and artistry, which is ever-present throughout the whole album.
Some
songs work better than others, though I’d still describe the least effective
song as above average. At the top of the pyramid, we have “Skøgen Skulle Dø”, which may be the most scintillating opening to
a metal album this year. After some light, plaintive choral singing; the song
erupts with resounding toms and piercing fiddle. It conjures the sort of
roaring atmosphere that so many surgically-recorded folk metal bands seek to
capture but clinical production techniques won’t allow.
Another
fantastic highlight is “Onde Børn”,
which has the strongest Ulver influence of
anything on the album. A more accurate assessment might be to say that it
shares an adjacent space to Ulver’s music, working
a familiar-enough vibe into the song to warrant comparison, but different
enough that it can stand proudly on its own. In that sense, it’s in good
company alongside "Les Feuilles De
L'olivier" from Les Discrets’ debut
album ‘Septembre Et Ses Dernières
Pensées’. “Mordet”, on the other
end of the emotional spectrum, is a snarling and much better-conceived
counterweight to the album’s overall tone. Where “Onde Børn” is something of a pleasant musical fantasy, “Mordet” is driven by traditionally
bleak black metal songwriting with added musical theatrics. Blast beats, dissonance
and rage keep the album from losing steam at the midway point and also serve to
keep the album away from treading the same water for too long.
The
weaker moments on the album come in the form of songs like “Byssan Lull”. While they
are easy on the ears, they also leave an impression of agreeable filler rather
than vital to the whole of the album. Perhaps that was the point. The album is
perfectly lean at thirty seven minutes, so perhaps a couple of these
two-to-three minute interludes are meant to keep the album over thirty minutes.
They’re never really detrimental, but perhaps they might have been better
utilized as pieces of the proper songs instead. It might have also been better
to make use of the two choice songs from the EP. They could have been used here
in place of the aforementioned interludes and had a much greater impact with
the richer sound of ‘M’.
Even
with a few less-than-memorable moments from a couple of filler tracks, the bulk
of ‘M’ contains some of the best
material I’ve heard this year. At this juncture, Myrkur has proven to be
capable of material that is truly special, with the sort of vivid musical
imagination welcome in any genre, metal being no exception. What’s most
exciting is what an even deeper exploration of this kind of folkish black
metal, rich with creativity might yield a couple of years from now.
