Three albums in three years now for Shamaatae and considering that before this, apart from the odd EP and split he had done nothing resembling a full length release for a decade I think it’s fair to say that he is being rather prolific. Mind you he did this before in the late 90s’ releasing ‘Fran Marder,’ ‘Kostogher,’ and ‘Kampen’ in quick succession before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Now last album ‘ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ’ was in my and many other’s opinion the best thing from Arckanum in an age and I was rather surprised to hear that he had gone and moved label to Regain although then again, it being a Swedish label this made perfect sense. On playing ‘Sviga Læ’ I was at first disappointed and to a large extent still am. The main problem here is that the recording strikes as lacking power and the production is very low apart from the last number which sounds like it could be from another session. However I am reviewing this via MP3 download and perhaps, and I would certainly hope, this may sound better when out on actual disc. If it is compressed or sounding particularly poor via this medium for any reason, the perverse thing is that previous label Debemur Morti scrapped MP3 promos after a quick trial run as they considered they did not represent and reflect their artist’s true intentions properly.
On a copy and paste side note, before getting to the music one should mention where Shamaatae is coming from here in the grand scheme of things. “The album is a dedication to Surtr; Giant and Ruler of the world of flames Múspellzheimr, and Loki; the Flaming Giant and Archenemy of the worlds. ‘Sviga Læ’ is a manifestation of the blazing Chaos and the burning of the gods.” In other words, business as usual for the trollish one.
‘Læ Elr,’ is classic sounding Ackanum, there is a repetitive driving melody with guitars buzz sawing away and gravid vocals rasping and conjuring who knows what demons out of the ether. It only takes one listen to hook you to the great melody behind this and there is a fiery persuasiveness that continues to spill into next number ‘Gylðir Algørir.’ There is nothing drawn out on the album with all the eight songs being around the 4-5 minute mark. I was quite surprised to find two instrumentals included here and the first of these ‘In Følva Felr’ has a real depressive flow about it at first and although again having great melody around chugging guitar and bass lines, it’s a bit of a downer of a number. Although it is expertly executed by this one man entity, one does also wonder what vocals could have added to this.
‘Gramr Girnisk’ is suitably grim whatever the title translates as and is another album highlight but there are times when things plod and really do not have the spark about them we have seen from the opening couple of numbers and indeed from the proceeding album. ‘Andskoti Ferr Austan,’ for instance meanders until 2/3 of the way through we finally get a driving pace and vocals thrown in almost as an afterthought. Finally as mentioned before, with the album at only 38 minutes it is as though closing instrumental ‘Røk’ is thrown on to pad out the running time. It’s not particularly a memorable acoustic number and the difference in recording level is the only thing that really makes it stand out.
Considering that sometimes an artist does not release their best work prior to leaving a label, due to fulfilling contractual obligations it is almost as though Arckanum have done things back to front here. Perhaps this album was rushed, maybe Shamaatae needs a bit of a break again to gather thoughts and creativity together but as much as it pains me to say I can only really state that ‘Sviga Læ’ is a bit of a patchy album.
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