Panopticon - The Rime of Memory (2023)^{Release ID: 49023}

Look, I've enjoyed Panopticon for a long time now. Austin Lunn is a master songwriter when it comes to combining folk/americana with the ethereal sounds of atmospheric black metal, while purposefully giving them a hard left political tilt, almost as a gigantic middle finger to the political right who run rampant in the black metal spheres, especially in regards to Nazi Socialist black metal.

So I was happy to see a new Panopticon album come across my review desk this year. I was very happy with the last album ...And Again Into The Light and could not wait to hear what was coming next. But I felt confused and even a little isolated from The Rime of Memory. This record was, to be completely honest, an absolute bore at times to get through. The record has just six (6) songs, but each has a runtime that comfortably exceeds ten minutes. And if you know anything about atmospheric black metal, it likes to take its time. And Panopticon are taking their time here; an excruciatingly long amount of time. The Rime of Memory is an album that takes influence from drone metal by having a stylistic idea that goes underdeveloped for nearly ten minutes on the opening track. It takes the opening track almost half of its runtime before you even hear the sound of an electric guitar.

This is not a bad thing on its own; I like when bands take their time and let their songs naturally grow and I like how Austin makes the listener wait for that huge black metal release of sound. But Panopticon have proven before that this style of songwriting works a lot better when the compositions have something to say. Panopticon know how to say a lot in a short amount of time, but here, it seems like they are contempt with saying very little and then meandering the rest of the way.

My first thought after finishing The Rime of Memory and discovering this revelation was; "how is this any different than Fen's 2017 album Winter?" And since I don't need an excuse to listen to that record again, I went back and realized that the songwriting on that record was a lot more dense; songs flowed in and out of motifs and ideas regularly, and when Fen were meandering on a single motif for an extended period of time, they kept them interesting through dynamic swelling, harmonic variety and a great concept. The Rime of Memory has only one of those three.

The thing is, Panopticon have done the environmentalist theme before, so hearing it done again, under less precise circumstances is troubling. This will be one of those records that will be adored by the critics, but on a personal level, I have next to no use for it. It still has the charm of a Panopticon record sonically and conceptually, but from a populist perspective, this falls flat in many different ways.