Artist: Svarti Loghin
Title: Drifting Through The Void
Type: CD
Label: ATMF/A Sad Sadness Song

Svarti Loghin are like laudanum. In the same way the Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Kahn is the literary personification, the numbing melody’s of this band are it’s melodic spirit. Mixing Psychedelic Rock, Neo-Folk, and Black Metal the band create an addictive blend of the sublime and the terrifying. It is a tremendous balance that is becoming increasingly prevalent in the Post-Black Metal scene with bands such as Caïna and Alcest already creating a stir amongst the journalistic types. (Though has anyone noticed the rather blatantly similar cover art to Caïna’s ‘Some People Fall?’).

‘Red Sun Sets’ opens the album with some nice clean guitar and piano over a psychedelic sounds cape of nature samples to set the mood. With that accomplished ‘Kosmik Tomhet’ get things of to a proper start with what sounds like it could be the bridge between ‘The Silent Enigma’ and ‘Eternity’ by Anathema. ‘Odelagd Framtid’ utilizes the pained Black Metal vocals to great effect over the melodic rock of the song to create an interesting sonic dichotomy that induces a near trance-like state. The title track ‘Drifting Through The Void’ is a strange mix of 80’s new wave, Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd and ‘Filosofem’ era Burzum - needless to say it is a damn fine track that warrants listening to on your back in a darkened room. ‘Nightsky Interlude’ goes down the more ambient route with its dark swirling soundscape providing a quick rest between the two halves of the album. ‘Bury My Heart in these Starlit Waters’ weighs in at hefty nine minutes of prog-tinged Post-Black Metal that meanders through uplifting melody and soul destroying harshness on a journey to a rather satisfying end. Up next is a skilful reproduction of Black Sabbath’s ‘Planet Caravan’ - the only noticeable difference between this version and the original is in the vocals which says a lot for the musical skill of the band if not for their imagination. The album ends on ‘Stargazer’ that sounds like a cross between early Arcturus and Caïna which provides the band with their most recognizably Black Metal track on the album, but it is still nonetheless endowed with all the melancholic melody of it’s predecessors.

Svarti Lohin court melody with savagery, the result of which is ear-nibblingly beautiful and brutal to the core. Having not heard the band’s previous release, save for a couple of tracks on their myspace page I can’t attest to their musical development, but I think it safe to say the band have clicked with this album.

http://www.myspace.com/svartiloghin

Sean M. Palfrey

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