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Sorgeldom's follow-up full-length release, Inner Receivings, comes roughly one year after their debut album, and it seems that in that amount of time, the band has picked up some new additions to their sound. While the band originally played some pretty strong and aggressive Black Metal, it seems now as if the band has decided to experiment with a more shoegaze approach for their music, which at times isn't too bad, but winds up simply sounding very out of place. Tack on the low production quality that isn't enough to be called raw thanks to it's rather clear and digital overall sound, and you have another band trying to create a rather atmospheric opus. And, in many ways, Inner Receivings pulls it off quite well, while other points come off less original, and less entertaining. The material on Inner Receivings seems to be composed of two elements. You have a more raw and aggressive Black Metal sound that reflects the band's earlier musical adventures, which is often fantastic in the music, though seems a bit overlooked in the long run due to the greater emphasis on the shoegaze aspect of the music, which makes up the other portion of the album. There also seems to be a bit of a loss in direction at times for the band, which is evident right at the start with "I Kloaken Lättar Vi Ankar", which is a nearly eleven minute track that features some great Black Metal, and some great post elements a la shoegaze. There really is no problem with this track at all, as both musical world seem to merge nicley upon one another, though a two transitions in the more straight forward Black Metal verses do seem a little rough. The problem with this song is that the band seems to lose focus, and by the end sounds like a whole other song that is drastically void of anything that composed the first six minutes of the song. Honestly, chances are you'll look at your player when you hear it end thinking you quickly plowed through the first twenty minutes of this album and expected to be on the third track, "Vintern Var Hård". Aside the song that has a mind of it's own, he other problem is that sometimes the band cannot effectively merge the Black Metal sound with the shoegaze atmosphere. The first time this happens nicely is during the fourth track, "Dårskapens Karneval", which starts off with shoegaze and goes into a well matching Black Metal track that still has the Shoegaze music it started with in the background keeping the essential structure of the song alive to act as an introduction for the more aggressive Black Metal portion of the song. Sadly, this kind of structuring isn't the case on many of the songs on this release, as the band seems to just jump from Black Metal to Shoegaze, and it really leaves a void for the listener as the styles often conflict with one another. Of course, there's always "Vintern Var Hård" which is a well composed stricly shoegaze track with absolutely no Black Metal at all. Aside those issues with the album, Sorgeldom do manage to create some entertaining tracks here. The aforementioned "Vintern Var Hård" is a very peaceful instrumental track that you can easily get yourself lost in. "Dårskapens Karneval" is, again, as mentioned, another fantastic track that shows the band's ability to weave the shoegaze and Black Metal sounds together nicely as opposed to the first two tracks on this effort. The title track "Inner Receivings", however, is the best song off the entire record, not only because of it's nice transitions through the two musical approaches, but also thanks to how intense the Black Metal is, and how little shoegaze actually appears while the music remains in that state, leaving the grim and menacing music to continue on it's own before fluidly going into a shoegaze climax that beautifully calms both the album without voiding out the music that was established during the heavier aspects so that it can seemlessly pick right back up where it left off to close out the track. In the same vain as the transitions used in "Inner Receivings", the song "Drommarnas Galax" is more of a lighter Black Metal song that is enhanced through Shoegaze and really tops off the album nicely. It also shows that, with the way the band utilizes both of these styles of music, having shorter song lengths is often a must, as the song flows naturally and doesn't feel drawn out like many of the longer songs on here, even including "Inner Receivings" after a while. Sorgeldom have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to stand out in this Post-Black Metal world, as there isn't really much that can be done through Shoegaze that hasn't already been done. Some of the transitions on this CD sound very rocky, while others feel fluid as if a whole other person had composed them. Inner Receivings is clearly a stepping stone release from this band, but the more aggressive Black Metal efforts this band puts forth on this recording are really the highlight of the entire album, and really should be where the band sticks to instead of branching into a style of music that needs to be expanded more in any way possible and sounding like many of the already well established acts of this art like Alcest, but just a more flawed version. Perhaps in time the band can expand on their sound moreso, especially with the way the last half of the album sounds compared to how it starts, but until then, Inner Receivings is what we are given, and it's just not that impressive overall. |
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