(Andy Synn recommends the new album from one of the most vital new voices in the underground)
If you’ve been in this game for a while, like I have, chances are you’ll have come across quite a few sites/zines/writers who only really cover “big” name bands (usually signed to well-known labels) in the hope of receiving some reciprocal attention and/or access in return.
And while we’ll occasionally cover some “bigger” (relatively speaking) names here at NCS – no-one’s going to be accusing Kreator of being “underground” any time soon, after all – that’s never been our primary focus.
I’ll grant you, in the past we’ve occasionally had a guest writer or two who’ve crossed the line from honest advocacy into outright sycophancy, but when it comes to the core cadre – myself, Islander, and DGR – we at least try to provide some context and justification for our recommendations, rather than just regurgitating the provided press-release materials and calling it a day.
But, let me tell you, as hard as we may try to maintain this self-imposed sense of pseudo-objectivity, it’s not always easy to do so, especially when it comes to an album like Ingenting Forblir… but I’ll try my best.
If you read my review of the band’s debut, Jeg Blir Til Deg (“I Will Be With You“) – which ended up as one of my Top Ten releases of 2023 – you’ll already be aware of just how fearless, how ferocious, an album it was, serving as a stunning statement of intent from one of the most vital, and visceral, new voices in Black Metal.
Well Ingenting Forblir (“Nothing Remains“) takes the sound already established on their first album – a sound reminiscent, at its best, of the likes of Nachtmystium, Young and in the Way, and Hexis at their most aggressive and abrasive – and pushes practically every aspect of it even further into the red, resulting in a sophomore record which is notably darker, heavier, and somehow even more furious (as the brooding menace and blistering malice of “Den svake mannen” quickly attests) than its already pretty-damn-intense predecessor.
And yet, despite its darker mien and ominous title, Ingenting Forblir is not an overtly nihilistic album… though it’s definitely a nasty one, especially when it comes to the sheer venom and vitriol spewing from every vocal line… rather it serves as a reminder that “nothing lasts”, that no matter how bad things may seem “this too shall pass”, and that – sometimes – bloody-minded, unyielding persistance is the best form of resistance.
As a result it’s almost as much a Punk album as it is a Black Metal one – although, musically at least, it skews even more towards the latter than its predecessor, with ravenous, riff-driven tracks like “Faenskap for alltid” and “Bygg til himmelen” achieving an almost Kampfar-esque combination of hammering, rhythmic riffs, winding, whirlwind tremolo melodies, and cathartic, commanding vocals – and thus hits the listener head-on with an immediacy and intensity that cannot be denied.
That’s not to say there aren’t still certain moments of subtlety and introspection – there’s an intimacy to the moody intro (and mid-section) of “La barna leve”, for example, which contrasts nicely with the song’s electrifying energy, while the aptly-named “Klarhet i kaos” sees the band finding poignant moments of calming clarity amidst all the clamouring chaos – which hint at remnants of the trio’s earlier, more Shoegaze-inflected sound (with closer “Jeg våkner snart” perhaps coming closest to balancing both fragility and ferocity in equal measure), but for the most part Ingenting Forblir is a caustic conflagration of passion and fury from beginning to end.
So don’t be fooled by the lack of spikes or corpse-paint… this isn’t “Atmospheric”, “Post-“, or even “Spiritual” Black Metal… this is “the spiteful sound of Patricidal Black Metal”… and its knives are sharper than ever.