In the Woods... - HEart of the Ages (1995) Reviews
Beautiful, awe-inspiring black metal album that's both distinctive and emotional.
When many people think of the Norwegian band In the Woods..., they think of the progressive entity that they would become. While I certainly don't discount the work that they’ve produced in their later years (I'm quite fond of it), the name In the Woods... will always bring to my mind this incredibly engaging, atmospheric black metal debut album. There are a couple of reasons why this is the case. Not least of all that the band's name is far more representative of this epic, mystical style of music rather than the avant-garde progressiveness of albums such as Omnio and Strange in Stereo. But most of all, I think of HEart of the Ages because it's one of the very best albums I own. It's a colossal, emotional rollercoaster of an album that expands upon the black metal framework with unbridled creative freedom, to build a sound entirely unique and hugely majestic.
It's a tough album to describe since it covers so much ground. The black metal elements come from tremolo picked riffs, a generally pagan feeling throughout, and the occasional usage of high-pitched shrieks. But there's an electronic element that adds a strange cosmic atmosphere, very much at odds with black metal and yet it works wonderfully here. Most vocals on the album are clean and seemingly folk inspired, being rather operatic yet never over indulgent. Many reviewers here appear to have an issue with how extreme the black metal screams are, but I think the mixture of clean and shrieked vocals is perfect for the vast landscapes created by the music. Most tracks on the album are rather lengthy affairs, with multiple instruments, sound effects and styles utilized, yet all remain distinctly memorable and cohesive. The two shorter tracks, Mourning the Death of Aase and the beautiful piano driven Pigeon, showcase just how talented the musicians involved are, once again surpassing the norms for a genre once known for its limited musical boundaries.
HEart of the Ages is most definitely an album you should experience in its entirety. Tracks such as Yearning the Seeds of a New Dimension and Wotan's Return are monstrous, shifting pieces all on their own, but the album is almost unsurpassed for its epic scale. By the time the sublime The Divinity of Wisdom (my personal favourite track on the album) is unleashed, you will be so far removed from everyday life, traversing a land of forests and snow while philosophising about our place in the universe. It's the type of album that, no matter what mood I am in or where my life is at, it will captivate me within moments and not let go until it all collapses in on itself, literally shattering into pieces as confirmation that it's time to depart. Thankfully this experience is always waiting for me, whenever I feel the need, or simply the desire. HEart of the Ages is truly a masterpiece and an essential experience for anyone that enjoys creative and grand black metal music.
Since one of my assignments for completing the prog metal challenge on Metal Academy is the In the Woods album Omnio, I decided to start with their debut and then finish it off with their third album. This might be a black metal album, but it's part of another clan challenge for black metal, and even though I'm not part of that clan, I want to get through at least one for each clan anyway. So here we go.
Now this is ATMO-BLACK, and it starts off with a nice, albeit generic, bit of dungeon synth to kick of the atmospheres. This is the 12 minute Yearning the Seeds of a New Dimension. Afterwards, it turns into a standard post / doom metal riff with a deeper voice that seems a little more fit for atmo-viking metal (heh, if such a thing exists... which it probably does) rather than black, but we hadn't even gotten to the black yet, and it finally kicks in at minute seven of twelve. So while this was a nice, pretty and mutative track, don't expect anything standard. While the production and atmospheres need A LITTLE tuning for that perfect presence, the composition is perfectly fine Next comes the title track. The effects are lo-fi and need a real professional, but these effects only last a few seconds before the blackened assault drowns us in the cold. The same melodic deep vocals of Jan Kenneth "Transit" Transeth have returned, but I think they need a backing reverb for the effects to work their full magic, like Bergtatt or even anything by My Bloody Valentine. Without the production, his voice is more suited towards the doomier parts of the album.
And now for the band's titular track. So this is basically how we're doing this: dungeon synth, post / doom riff, atmo-black metal riff, post / doom riff, atmo-black riff, lather, rinse, repeat. While we get a lot of nice vibes here, not only does the simple production keep every clear sound from maximazing the atmospheres, but we largely know what's happening next. Little surprises like female vocals in the next track really don't mean as much as they should in the grander scheme of the album. Thankfully, we get a little mix once the longest song on the album comes. Wotan's Return is largely based in black's ability to thrash like mad, and these guys aren't afraid to crank it up so high they break the dial. Of course, this doesn't generally mean the actual rhythmic composition is at a high point. There are some great moments here with some nice rhythms, but the time they take to simply thrash and scream can easily be drawn out. It goes into a lot of weird and quiet effects halfway through, like it's suddenly an Autechre album. This happens for a couple minutes until we're brought back to a less monstrous but still atmospheric breand of the black metal that took up the first half. Still, the composition itself isn't really anything groundbreaking, especially since we go right back to the thrashing immediately afterwards. Then there's Pigeon... which is just three minutes of decent piano.
Finally, we have The Divinity of Wisdom. The synths are used as a violin instrument to back up the slower tempos of the black metal guitars for roughly a minute before the singing begins. But I can't hear them very well on this track, which is further proof that the album shouldn't have been produced by Trond Breen. It's probably the best tune on the track for its composition, though.
I was hoping for something a bit more interesting considering that some consider this a unique album, but it feels like HEart of the Ages is one of those albums that delivers an idea without perfect delivery, which leaves all those influenced by the album to expand on plus perfect the idea, much like the Blasphemy debut did with war metal. This isn't halfbad because it's still a nice and unique idea that rarely drags, and it's quite enjoyable, but it certainly needs a little work in places.
On that note, a viking metal album about winter aesthetics, now I KNOW it's a thing.
A Haunting Trek
This sophomore album from In The Woods... seemingly exists in an interesting space between traditional Atmospheric Black Metal and a strange amalgamation of progressive influences that pulls the album in all sorts of directions before eventually finding its way back to its shrieking base genre. Upon first hearing the beginning of "Yearning the Seeds of a New Dimension", it'd be hard to even know you'll be listening to a dense and forceful Black Metal performance seven minutes from now. HEart of the Ages is many, many things; its themes and influences ranging from Gothic theatrics to folky Paganism to a more stripped down, ambient sound with its unsettling use of synthesizers. All of these elements come together to form something that's haunting and truly atmospheric, rather than just being lazily labeled as such. If anything, the atmosphere comes from the idea of meandering around and teasing its Black Metal aspects instead of fully committing to the classic wall of grinding, low production guitar and drumming. When introduced like this HEart of Ages sounds like one of the most important Atmospheric Black Metal albums to ever be released and while it's no doubt one of the most interesting, its haphazardness eventually leads to its slight downfall.
In The Woods... is able to achieve an extremely resonant sound with their production, with none of the synths sounding thin and the percussion and vocal screeching echoing off into the distance. This also helps the more ambient and quieter sections feel more immersive, since they feel like they actually have some depth to them. Overall this is just an extremely pretty album that pulls out all the stops when it comes to dismal but somehow hopeful melodies played in either a Folk, Gothic, or Doom style. There are so many different variations on the haunting atmosphere HEart of the Ages kicks off with, ranging from soothing chords and clean background guitar in "Mourning the Death of Aase", to the piano in "Pigeon", to the overall strange and spacey experimental synths in "Wotan's Return". All of these parts by themselves sound fantastic, with the layering and balance being spot on so nothing sounds too shallow or out of place. As a full product, though, the transitions and placement of these elements leaves a lot to be desired, since I found the whole affair to have fairly lackluster progression most of the time. There are some obvious exceptions, like the second half of the closer "The Divinity of Wisdom" and the riff progression of "Wotan's Return", but the rest of the album lacked continuity for me. The constant vocal and mood switches leave certain parts feeling a bit wonky and out of place, one of the prime examples actually being the 7 minute build-up of the first track. While beautiful, haunting, and setting up the atmosphere of the rest of the album perfectly, I can't shake that something just doesn't line up as it slowly transitions from atmospheric synth to ripping Black Metal.
Although the Black Metal isn't the massive talking point within HEart of the Ages, it certainly has its moments when the Black Metal is just absolutely killer. The vocals admittedly come off as a bit too visceral for what they're supporting and take a bit to get warmed up to, but I do think they work out favorably in the end. The mental shrieking is such a shock factor since it's so different than the theatrical clean singing or spoken word that's normally used throughout the album. It definitely keeps the listener on their toes since tracks like "Heart of the Ages" has the tendency to swap between them seemingly at random during certain parts. When In The Woods... finally stops skirting around the traditional Black Metal aspects of their album and actually get down to some riffing though, it's a serious treat with "Wotan's Return" and "...In the Woods" having stunningly aggressive riffs, tremolo, and even some chug thrown in there. Some of the more standard Black Metal fare does tend to drag during the more extended heavy sections, but it's still able to carry the atmosphere set up by all of the synths and other elements In The Woods... throws in extremely well. The guitar solos really shine too since the songs have enough buildup and tension to really nail a huge payoff after setting up all of the prerequisites.
HEart of the Ages is a unique Black Metal experience that fans don't want to miss out on, but it somehow failed to make a serious impression on me personally. For me, the sum of its parts is actually lesser than the parts themselves, with certain portions being a masterful display of a more progressive side of Atmospheric Black Metal. The lo-fi elements aren't overdone, the riffs are impressive, the atmosphere is haunting and dismal, so on the surface it seems like everything I could have asked for. It's left me at a crossroads where even though I think the songwriting is well done, it's negligent haphazardness as it traverses so much musical ground really comes back to bite it in the end. In The Woods... are able to cover so much in one short hour that while being impressive and memorizing most of the time there are just certain parts that didn't sit well with me. The Doom/Gothic vocals can be a bit overdone in some cases, some Black Metal riffs go on for a bit too long, some transitions within the atmospheric sections feel a bit wonky, and these small issues sadly compounded enough for me to call HEart of the Ages a triumph in a more progressive avenue of Atmospheric Black Metal, but not necessarily a classic. The ideas and riffs are fantastic, but the execution as a holistic experience falls just a bit flat.