Icelandic Black Metallers ILLKYNJA self released their debut album earlier this year. Now with a full physical release coming on September 15th via Goathorned Productions and Narbentage Produktionen.
Dissonant guitars with sparse riffs draw in with psychedelic oddities. Crashing drums build tension alongside the understated riffs before a raw barrage of murky discordance hits with full force. Unhinged and depraved, the Icelandic sound is certainly present with its forcefully upheaving blows of otherworldly eeriness. The vocals are more of a growled snarl than the expected screeching associated with this style of Black Metal, it meets the deathly cold riffs gorgeously while the fairly simplistic drums punctuate the music without becoming overzealous. Immediately comparisons to their countrymen and contemporaries such as Skaphe, Wormlust and Andavald can be draw, this is not to say the music is not unique however, as we will see through its development.
Gandering between softer yet equally harsh sections and onslaughts of totally visceral proportions, this cosmically charged violence has a primal approach but with a huge range of ideas to deliver monolithic concoctions of darkness and solitude. The music is unquestionably anguishing with a truly disturbed vision warping into the light, only showing us a glimmer before returning to the odious murk. The release is packed with nuance that will probably take upwards of a dozen listens to truly appreciate, though certainly is enticing and mesmerising enough on first listen to grab the attention of those who can hack the discordant eruptions. Betwixt the hammered drum fills and snarled vocals are endlessly twisting layers of multi-faceted and unsettling guitar progressions that eat away at the brain with such malice as they convulse to the groans of the musicians darkness visions.
While I have talked a lot about the macabre excellence that is Icelandic Black Metal being played gloriously, I have neglected until now to mention how psychedelic the music is. With contorting melodies that are most probably beyond the comprehension of most minds, the music creates an expansive experience more like that of dimenthyltryptamine than of a Metal record. This said, the album is inarguably Black Metal, just of a sort that takes the works of Deathspell Omega into a far more self-punishing route that will certainly be memorable to those who hear it for its hauntingly introspective antics of chaotic soundscapes. Impeccable songwriting prowess and passionate musicianship with a murky production meets to ensure the most violent hallucinations are caused by this recording.
This debut album is a monstrous cacophony of hopelessly despairing dissonance, disturbed atmospherics and contorting, malicious soundscapes. Another gem of Icelandic genius that will haunt, confuse and harm those who stumble across its warped magnificence. A grandiose 40 minutes of self-torturing barbarity that certainly holds its value in the Icelandic Black Metal scene. -9/10
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