Taake - Et hav av avstand (2023)Release ID: 47184
Taake mainman Hoest is an interesting and somewhat underappreciated contributor to the history of Norwegian black metal. Beginning the band in Bergen as Thule in 1993 he has been around that infamous scene since it's earliest days. Whilst undoubtedly taking his cues from those raw, primal black metal beginnings, he has always been an artist who treads his own path. He has never shied away from longer tracks, having several clocking in around ten mibutes, but here he goes all-in with the album's 42 minutes being taken up by just four tracks, with opener "Denne forblaaste ruin av en bro" and following track, "Utarmede gruver" running into each other and coming off as one long twenty-minute-plus epic.
The album is jam-packed with tremolo-picked riffs that are generally quite catchy and melodic, yet Takke's skill is in not making it sound at all like a melodic black metal album and believe me when I say that this is jam-packed with riffs then you had better believe it, the tracks switch from riff to riff like a hyperactive toddler in a Coca-Cola factory. Despite his riffs incorporating influences from everything from trad metal to post-punk, he still imbues them with enough true black metal rawness to leave no one in any doubt that this is indeed a norwegian black metal album. That aesthetic is more than ably reinforced by Hoest's searing, screeching vocals, that provide that quintessentially authentic nordic black metal vocal experience and leave you in no doubt as to what type of album you are listening to.
The opening diptych is followed by the album's shortest track, Gid sprakk vi, which is the most obviously black metal of the tracks here, it's icy blasting reaching reaching for us through the years from the time of Darkthrone's unholy trilogy and producing a shiver down the spine of real black metal afficianados. That blast of nostalgia is followed by the closer and the album's longest single track, Et uhyre av en kniv. This has a progressive feeling to it with an overarchingly melancholic atmosphere, sounding to me a bit like something you may have heard from Ihsahn early in his solo career.
In summation I would say that Hoest has pulled off quite the trick here, releasing an album that is atmospheric, melodic and progressive, but that wears the monochromatic clothes of blistering and raw true norwegian black metal, leaving the listener with a decidedly original experience. I don't suppose this will receive too much attention but it really should as I think it is a wonderously creative slice of modern black metal that appeals to me far more than the preponderance of unlistenable dissonant and avant-garde black metal that everyone seems to be championing nowadays.
After recently rating and reviewing "Nattestid ser porten vid...", I of course noticed that Taake released this new album here in 2023. The two albums are both black metal, but this one really has a heavy metal guitar in this one, I really enjoyed the riffs here more so than in the earlier album and everything else comes off as more mature and experienced. You can tell the songwriting had more experience put into it, and I think for being almost 25 years you can hear the difference but the soul of the music is still here.
