Review by Saxy S for Panopticon - Kentucky (2012)

I remember quite vividly the night when one of my college roommates introduced me to Panopticon in November of 2015. As I was still quite a noob to extreme/black metal at the time, I recall listening to Autumn Eternal a good three times consecutively as I was sucked in to the impeccable pacing, songwriting and production. I almost instantly went back and checked out their back catalog; most notably, 2014's Roads to the North and 2012's Kentucky. 

What I was so impressed by was Austin Lunn's pacing. While this is certainly in the mold of atmospheric black metal, and technically that genre tag incorporates at least half of this album, Kentucky is far more elaborate than other black metal albums. The album has numerous interludes and full tracks of bluegrass inspired tones that would be very familiar to someone living in the state of Kentucky. Songs like "Come All Ye Coal Miners" and "Which Side Are You On" are interpolated from American folk/protest songs and serve as beautiful changes of pace and refrains before the blast beats, tremolo picking guitars and howling vocals return. Furthermore, the black metal tracks each have their own unique Americana interludes on "Bodies Under the Falls" and "Black Soot and Red Blood". And while they do sound gorgeous on their own, they do feel more like asides rather than a continuation of an idea.

And this has been one of Austin Lunn's biggest issues as a musician since I discovered them. At first it never bothered me, but as time passed, and I was introduced to Saor, I found that the folk elements were far less developed. Not only is the folk instrumentation of the lap steel guitar not incorporated into a black metal framework, but from a songwriting point of view, the way in which songs will drastically change tempo's and styles without preparation make the track "Killing the Giants as They Sleep" feel less rewarding of its extended runtime. I would have loved to hear Austin Lunn create a soundscape that uses both and have them take place simultaneously. And this is still something that I would love to hear to this day.

The production of this album is splendid. Can we all take the time to appreciate how full the bass lines are here? "Black Soot and Red Blood" is such a driving track where the tremolo guitars are not doubling as bass notes, giving it more gravitas. Carrying off of that, the lead guitars are where this album does most of its heavy lifting as they provide most of melodic leads, which can be quite sticky in the case of "Bodies Under the Falls". I am not the biggest fan of the out of tunes flutes that appear on some of the black metal tracks. The vocals are some of Austin Lunn's most pronounced in all of Panopticon's discography...and yet they still feel muted. Of course, this is really that big of a deal as this album contains a number of spoken word interludes that help tell its tale. Even without the words, you can tell this severity of the content just by how aggressive the music sounds. As for that content, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but while me and Austin Lunn have very, VERY different opinions on the topics of unions, I commend Panopticon for standing up for a group of people who have been disproportionately affected by poor wages, especially given their unsafe work environment...kind of like nurses in hospitals right now.

What a treat this record is! It is so dense on multiple levels that me trying to explain it all will take a few hours. I can only hope that this short little diatribe is enough of a recommendation to check out Kentucky. It is a marvelous album that feels progressive, but still firmly in its roots. It sounds amazing, and the content is superb. In hindsight, I would still hold this album back from the great Saor albums like Aura and Guardians, but among Austin Lunn's work, it is some of the best.