Review:

on 2011-04-05 CharlesMartel Said:

I suppose it was inevitable that the uniqueness of the recent work by Alcest, his alter ego in Amesoeurs and his doppelgangers in Les Discrets, should start prompting other bands to follow a similar path. Swedish group Svarti Loghin, on the face of it, seem to have followed just that path. Yet the more you listen, the more you begin to detect that this is a different kettle of fish. The issue is whether you are prepared to stick around long enough to figure that out.

I confess to struggling with many aspects of metal in a Harry Harryhausen sort of way. It appears to be a titanic struggle between a monstrous genre and a monstrous ego. But in fact it is a manipulated set of choreographed moves between combatants only a few inches high. The result of the non-titanic struggle is that I am very picky about the genre. Svarti Loghin have moved me in a slightly different direction than I may have otherwise taken, but not without some reservation. For a start, the almost inevitable comparison with shoegaze, which seems to bedevil almost any black metal band which dares to push to vocals to the background, is as misplaced here as elsewhere. Most of the tracks are based on a repetitive riff, under which is a muted cacophony of distorted guitar. The drumming is, at times, all over the place, and the bass line is lost in the mix but you know it is there because you can feel the rolling thunder - you just cannot pinpoint it.

And of course, there is no point reviewing a black metal album unless you comment on the vocals. The clean vocals, well to the back of the sound, have a dreamy almost ephemeral quality. When the same production style is used on the growling, which I loathe anyway, the result is something you could use to frighten children - hey, kids, do you hear that grunting in the closet? Misbehave and he'll come out and eat you!

But perhaps what is the most unusual aspect of the album, and indeed the most appealing, is what is referred to as the country music influences. Personally I think this aspect is overstated. Just because the band uses a twanging guitar, something they could have borrowed as much from the jangle poppers of the late eighties UK does not make this country music. Only on "Drifting Through the Void" (the track) does the so-called country influence emerge, and that is as much due to the use of a harmonica and acoustic guitars as anything else.

In the end, it is this aspect of the album which is the most endearing. It is what draws initial comparisons with the likes of Alcest and in the end marks "Drifting Through the Void" out from it. When the band are twanging away over a dense distorted guitar sound with those dream-like vocals in the background is when this album is at is peak. And for most of the tracks, this album does just that. Unfortunately, when they drift back towards more standard black metal forms, such as the growling, that is when this album ceases to be anything more than ordinary.

The odd track out in all of this is the cover of Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan". Clearly it is intended to be an act of homage to a major influence and a bit of hero worship never did anyone any harm. But it has little stylistic connection with the rest of the album and seems to be included here for no other reason than the band like it. It is not a bad cover - just out of place.

In the end, this is an album which leaves an impression, a largely positive one, on the listener. They are clearly part of this shoegaze-black metal fusion theme which was begun so spectacularly by Alcest with his first album, but they have managed to carve themselves out a place for themselves within that. The problem is that, unless you are a devotee of metal, which I am not, it is going to take you a while to figure that out. And for some, that may be a while too long for interest to be sustained.
Rating: 8/10