ALBUM REVIEW: Andavald – Undir Skyggðarhaldi

Here I review the brand new album from Icelandic black metallers Andavald. The record is out now via Mystiskaos.

Opening with a disconcerting mixture of ambience with a wide spectrum of glacial sounds, the searing coldness of this music is drawn in gradually. Fierce layers of guitar dissonance and crashing drums cascade into place with a macabre snarling vocal performance that quickly adds a further malice to the convulsively frenzied assault. A barrage of warping instrumentals and eeriness provides some intimate and claustrophobic black metal with plenty of experimental touches, as is they way in Iceland. The gorgeousness of the cleaner sections is rivalled only by the utterly contemptuous chaos of caustic warfare in the harsher parts.

A feverish cacophony of guitars that swing with malignant discordant harmonies consistently ensnares a primal and hypnotic drum performance alongside some throat-ripping howls which sound cathartically tormenting. The band offer a haunting conjuration of occult and avant-garde artistry that mesmerises you with its positively inescapable soundscapes, truly vanquishing any light with its crushing inferno of Icelandic majesty. There is a seething and endless spiralling into some void of mysterious forces that really does drag you into the release and hold you catatonically throughout which is both amazing and also rather intimidating.

An utterly phenomenal debut release, from start to end it remained volatile and unnerving with a sense of tension that few bands can pull off for so long. Listen to Andavald, unless you want to remain comfortable. I would go as far to say it is my favourite black metal record of the last decade, and inarguably one of the most dementedly terrifying…

-10/10