PANOPTICON – THE RIME OF MEMORY

(Andy Synn offers some early insight into The Rime of Memory, set for release on 29 November)

It could be argued that I am, perhaps, the wrong person to be reviewing the new album from Panopticon (aka multi-instrumental marvel Austin Lunn), as my history with the band is somewhat mixed.

Like many of you, I fell in love with the seminal Kentucky the moment I first heard it but, unfortunately, I was far less taken with both Roads to the North and Autumn Eternal which – while both good albums in their own right (the latter especially) – just didn’t seem to speak to me in quite the same way.

However, just as I was beginning to accept that our connection was perhaps only a fleeting one, they released the ambitious and expansive double-album, The Scars of Man…, which swiftly rekindled my love for their forlon, folk-inspired sound, and then followed this up with the absolutely masterful …And Again Into the Light, which may well be the best album of their career.

Then again, perhaps this means that I might actually be the best choice to review The Rime of Memory, as I’m less likely than most to descend into unwarranted hyperbole and hero-worship and more willing to offer a mix of both praise and criticism, to whatever extent is warranted?

I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

It should become apparent, even after just one listen, that Panopticon‘s new album is a more sombre, and more haunting (or perhaps that should be haunted?), work than its predecessor.

That’s not to say that the band’s previous record was all sweetness and light by any means, but there’s a definite contrast between the bleak beauty of songs like “Dead Loons” and “The Embers at Dawn” and the even more mournful and melancholy tone of tracks such as “Cedar Skeletons” and “An Autumn Storm”.

And if it doesn’t always rise to the same soaring heights as its seminal predecessor – though both the gorgeously gloom-shrouded “Winter’s Ghost” and the absolutely stunning strains of “Enduring the Snow Drought” rank right up there alongside the band’s very best – there’s just as much depth to the music as ever, with the even more prominent embrace of yearning Post-Rock atmospherics during both the aforementioned “Winter’s Ghost” and “Cedar Skeletons” and captivating closer “The Blue Against the Weight” further deepening the dynamic contrast between the band at their most introspective and at their most intense.

At the same time, it’s also worth noting that the album’s more brooding, perhaps even fatalistic, sound does make for a slightly more demanding listen this time around (something that isn’t helped by the inclusion of “I Erindringens Høstlige Dysterhet”, which only serves to drag out the album’s introduction despite the fact that “Winter’s Ghost” would have been perfectly capable of handling things on its own) but your patience will definitely be rewarded in the long-run as the many different layers of the music – the moody acoustic melodies and doomy, dramatic riffs, the transcendent ambience and elemental fury – slowly but surely unfold and unfurl.

It’s fitting, really, that I’m writing this review as the days grow shorter and the nights draw in, as there’s something similarly pensive and poignant about The Rime of Memory, a solemn recognition of the changing of the seasons and a resigned acceptance of the inevitable passing of time, which will surely serve as a perfect soundtrack to the darker days to come, one tinged with – perhaps – some faint but ever-present threads of hope that the sun will shine upon us again if we can only hold out and endure long enough.