Arckanum - Fran Marder (1995)^{Release ID: 6897}

Okkvlt Klassik

Arckanum is the occultist brainchild of Johan "Shamaatae" Lahger who, at least for this first release, was able to keep a 3 piece band together long enough to release Fran Marder, a native and organic sounding Black Metal album that allowed him to express certain interests of his. Those interests being mostly occult literature as well as chaos and cosmic worship; but hey, as long as it's not hurting anyone, I'm cool with it. These influences are presented front and center on the introduction of the album as it takes you to a fantastical forest landscape with hooting owls and sleeping trolls or demons. This serene landscape then erupts into torrid tremolo picking, echo-laden vocals, and constant Black Metal blast beats. The production is fairly clean, with the tremolo picking being very audible as it creates most of the riffs and chords throughout the album. Fran Marder even throws some unexpected twists into the back half of the album, with "Trulmaeldr" and "Baeghet" showcasing another vocalist with more melodic and slower riffing than the rest of the album. The atmosphere that was established at the very beginning of the album does come back on tracks like "Kolin Vaeruld" and "Svinna", but the album as a whole lacks a bit of cohesiveness to really tie these ideas together. 

Sadly I walked away from this rather deep cut feeling more bored than anything, with seven out of the nine tracks feeling like I just listened to the same song. "Gava Fran Trulen" and "Trulmaeldr" are welcome shifts in song style which help to break up the album, but it wasn't enough for me. I can only handle so much Black Metal tremolo and aggressive blast beats where the snare sounds like it's an inch from my eardrum, and this album certainly has quite the amount of both of those. The attempts at incorporating atmospheric sections are commendable, but I walked away feeling unsure about what I was supposed to experience through them. The transitions from serene and divine forests straight into blistering Black Metal didn't work for me since it felt like I heard it all before after the first two tracks. The echo effect on all the vocals really got on my nerves after a while as well, which is a shame because there are definitely a few good tracks in here. 

If you're a massive Black Metal fan who loves tremolo and blast beats with a cleaner production and a few bells and whistles thrown in, Fran Marder is certainly the album for you, but it didn't click for me. 

Arckanum frequent the “also ran” section of my Black Metal library.  They always had the authenticity and air of dark menacing mystery surrounding them but never quite had the consistency to make them worthy of regular plays.  Most of their records feel like collections of songs just put together with little thought given to arrangement or overall composition. Fran Marder suffers from this perhaps the most of all the discography.

There is a real sense of constant turmoil throughout the record, but it isn’t well translated turmoil that gives the listener a sense of some emotional connection with the writer’s pain.  Instead it just feels like many people turned up to the writing table with lots of ideas and the editing process lacked any real structure and more or less everything went into the record.

Don’t get me wrong, when they are on point then it is some of the finest BM you’ll hear for the era.  But the work you have to put in to get to the reward doesn’t always feel like it is paying off.  Some filter on the idea flow was needed here to give the more creative and earthy elements of the record space to breathe and make the more aggressive parts feel less forced and showy.