(Andy Synn returns to the site with praise for the new album from Romania’s Genune)
As you may be aware (or maybe not, it depends on how much attention you’ve been paying to the site recently) I’m currently over in the USA enjoying the post-festival relaxation period after this year’s edition of Northwest Terror Fest before then heading over to Baltimore to attend Maryland Deathfest.
As a result I haven’t been doing much in the way of writing/reviewing… heck, I haven’t been online all that much at all… and have just been focussing on hanging out with some friends and listening to music purely for the enjoyment of doing so.
That being said, I do have a few things in mind for the next couple of weeks (including one highly-anticipated new release that’s guaranteed to be one of the best albums of the year), with the following review for the upcoming third album from Genune (out this Friday on Consouling Sounds) marking the end to my short (but necessary) hiatus.
Despite generally being referred to as a “Post Black Metal” band, I need to offer a word of caution… while Infinite Presence certainly has its moments of fiery intensity and mournful contemplation, it is far from what I would call a “dark” or “black” album.
If anything there’s such a sense of brightness and breathless longing – an ever-present feeling of hope (fragile though it may be) in the face of despair – which infuses the entire record that any reference to the term “Black Metal” could potentially lead to the build up of false expectations and the band being judged for being (or failing to be) something that they’re not.
That isn’t to say, of course, that Black Metal isn’t a part of their sound – both fiery first-half favourite “Stay a Little Longer” (which also features a captivating clean-vocal break during its melancholy mid-section) and emotionally epic final track “I Want You Here” (both of which, at times, remind me a fair bit of An Autumn For Crippled Children at their best) prove that Genune are, at the very least, somewhat “blackened” – it’s just that there’s so much more going on that even the term “Post Black Metal” feels like a misnomer to me.
This is especially obvious during songs like soaring, scene-setting opener “The Sun Will Always Shine” and eclectic, electric second-half highlight “To Not Grow Old” (whose use of captivating clean vocals and shimmering synths adds an even more overtly “proggy” sensibility to the band’s sound) which showcase a gorgeous blending of dynamic Post-Rock and Screamo influences – equally indebted to the sombre ambience and swelling crescendos of Explosions in the Sky and the seething aggression and spellbinding catharsis of envy as they are to the likes of Enslaved, for example – that will more than likely instantly alienate anyone to whom the term “Black Metal” is sacrosanct and inviolable.
Of course, ultimately, this is all academic – genre terms are useful ways to describe a band, after all, but they needn’t limit or define them – as the music which makes up Infinite Presence (propelled throughout by the genre-splicing percussive performance of drummer Abel Paduret, who is absolutely the album’s MVP to my ears) would be just as vital and vibrant, just as brimming with colour and light, by any other name (or none).
In this sense then perhaps the closest and most revealing comparison (particularly where the gleaming melodic magic of “Little Fountains” is concerned) would be with the “post” Black Metal work of latter-day Lantlôs, suggesting that while Genune‘s “Black Metal” years may be mostly behind them, their best is still ahead of them!