Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Gespenst - Forfald (2016)

There is a fair old amount of looming menace packed into the thirty-nine minutes that encompasses the debut album from Gespenst. These Danes know how to get the hairs standing on the back of the listener’s neck and have us shut the curtains and light lots of candles to truly celebrate their glorious black metal. I first stumbled across this duo via their Den sidste færd EP from 2021, soon finding myself leafing back through their very short discography, I have given Forfald a few spins in recent months.

This is a very anguished sounding black metal record to my ears. It has a base sense of melody that the tremolo drives nicely alongside an expansive (yet not atmospheric) backdrop that seems to curtail any sense of the proceedings getting too rapid or downright abrasive. Reminding me of Cultes Des Ghoules minus a lot of the theatre, Gespenst have a very simple yet effective approach to their music that breeds a sense of clarity in their sound that requires no help from particularly high-value production work. Bordering on the ritualistic/sacrificial side of bm at times (Revelation of Maggots’ spoken word section being one such memorable moment), there a sense of subtle ceremonial build over the course of the album, without ever becoming completely immersed in it.

Constructed over just four tracks, with none of them less than seven minutes in length, Forfald has an ease about the listening experience. Granted it has little in the way of the unique to separate it from the rest of the pack and therefore comes with very little challenge but at times it reminds me of a much more tempered and somehow infinitely more threatening version of Mayhem. As the album closes it only seems to prolong this sense of it writhing in the very murk it revels in for the whole experience. Hearing their later offering it is clear that much of the promise heralded here is realised and this bodes well for the future. I sense that given their lack of output (two releases since 2008), both members have (or had at some point) other projects ongoing, noting both members here reside in the melodic black metal group Black Dementia also. This limited output could well work in their favour though as I have yet to hear anything I do not like.