(Andy Synn steps again into the light with the new album from Panopticon, out this Friday)
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that there are no bad Panopticon albums.
This doesn’t mean, however, that all Panopticon albums are created equal – indeed, Austin Lunn’s willingness to explore different facets of his musical identity on different albums has always been one of the project’s most laudable features – and different listeners will definitely have different favourites.
For myself …And Again Into the Light remains the album I most listen to and most connect with, although both the seminal strains of Kentucky and the ambitious double-album The Scars of Man… are also held in the highest of esteem.
Which, as it turns out, bodes very well indeed for Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet (aka The Haunted Heart), which not only completes the “Laurentian Trilogy” of …Into the Light and The Rime of Memory but was also – by Lunn’s own admittance – inspired by, and expands upon, themes espoused on both the former (specifically the song “A Snowless Winter”) and Part 1 of The Scars of Man…, thus bringing things full circle and closing the book on this particular era of the band.
At first glance Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet seems like it may well be the least “Black Metal” album of the entire trilogy, with phenomenal opener “Woodland Caribou” (twelve minutes of sombre contemplation and simmering, slow-burning catharsis which is further elevated to ever more captivating heights by the soul-stirring string work of Lunn’s long-time collaborator Charlie Anderson) clearly opting for a more gloomily grandiose, Post-Rock inspired approach, one which shivers and swells from calm to crescendo like drifting snowbanks transforming into cascading avalanches of sound, leaving behind a haunting stillness in the sundered aftermath.
Dig a little deeper, however – but don’t worry, you won’t have to dig very far – and the rugged, organic grit and raw, elemental energy of tracks like “The Great Silence, Extinct” and “The White Cedars” will quickly remind you that Panopticon, in full flight, are one of the most impressively intense Black Metal acts in the USA (if not the world), with the surprisingly sinister strains of “A Culture of Wilderness” (featuring an absolutely scorching appearance from Jan Van Berlekom of Uprising) only further reaffirming the band’s puissant power.
But while Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet certainly possesses – to my ears, anyway – a rougher, rawer edge than its predecessor, there’s also something more ruminative, more reflective, about it too, with sublimely soulful touches like the soaring strings and stunning singing (the latter courtesy of Vemod‘s Jan Even Åsli) which crown the second half of “The White Cedars” or the gorgeously melodic, melancholic mid-section of “Blood and Fur Upon the Melting Snow” (whose bleak, windswept beauty should be enough to thaw even the hardest of hearts) positively brimming with a depth of feeling and weight of emotion that’s impossible to ignore or deny.
And it’s this sense of loss and longing – a solemn reflection on the passage of time, taking with it moments, people, and places that can then only be conjured as fading memories – which resonates throughout Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet, giving lines such as “Hallowed, the land I tread / Hollowed, the life I lived / Haunted, the heart in my chest” an added sense of both clarity and poignancy that rings truer than ever the older we get.
More than anything, however, it’s the questions asked – “What will become of my dust? / When time comes to an end / What will become of my stories / When my tongue no longer speaks them?” – but left unanswered, which tell you the most about this album, each one finding the protagonist of this story at a crossroads between mortality and modernity, where “…machines’ hum drowns out / the wind whipping through the glade / [and] the only solitude to be found / is resting in the grave“.
Truthfully, the more I listen to Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet – the more I immerse myself in the story being told and the musical/lyrical themes prevalent throughout the album (not least during the breathtaking slow-burn of “Ghost Eyes in the Firelight”, which serves as both a moody mirror and a worthy companion to the aforementioned “Woodland Caribou”, brilliantly book-ending the record with two of its biggest, boldest, and best tracks) – the stronger my feelings towards it become, and though I can’t tell you yet if it’s destined to find its place alongside some of my other favourites from the Panopticon catalogue I can tell you that you’re unlikely to find many other albums as rich and rewarding as this one released this year.
https://bindrunerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/det-hjems-kte-hjertet
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