Cascading, and surging arpeggio-induced atmospheric, cinematic, and vivid music from Denmark.
This will easily be the best Atmospheric Black Metal album you have heard this year, if not for years. The music is incredibly melodic with four long songs, ten to fourteen minutes, sweeping through layered sonics and immense build-ups, but also with tender and mellow parts. The band has cooperated with Max Uldahl for orchestration. He is known for creating immersive sonics around musical ideas. And here it unfolds to full force, with sweeping synth-based parts, with the sounds of strings and choruses.
But at the core lies the Black Metal sound of blasting drums, throbbing bass, sweeping arpeggios and tremolos from the distorted guitars, and vocals that are all over the spectrum from growls to howls via snarls and shrieks. The grandiose music immerses the vocals that are fighting to be heard. Although the album is called what translates to Happiness and the song titles are on the “happy” side, the musical realm of the album radiates a sense of DSBM. While there are some cheerful verses in the lyrics, existentialism is at the bottom of it all; happiness will always end. I suggest you go to the band´s Bandcamp site, look up the lyrics, and translate them. They will give you an extra heartfelt dimension to this emotional music.
It is five years since we have heard from the band, and we might have forgotten the impeccable Atmospheric Black Album, Livslede (Life´s Gloominess), they released in September 2020. The song titles on that album were pure DSBM; ”Loneliness”, ”Contempt”, ”Death Wish”. As opposed to the titles on this album that opens with “Din Røst malede Farver i Luften” (“Your Voice Painted Colors in the Air”) which opens with sound effects and a high pitched piercing sound that cuts through paving the way for a cascade of Atmospheric Black Metal sonics to thunder forward with blasting bass-ladden beats and high-speed arpeggios from parallel guitars. A desperate screaming voice emerges together with flowing melodic synths, singing: “Did you enjoy the peace when it was there / When your voice painted colors in the air / Invited by the glow of dawn / Idyllic calm and harmony” (translated from Danish). The cascading music plunges forward at blast beat speed with guitars and higher-pitched sounds forming melodies, immersing the vocals deep in the sonics until a shift in the flowing music comes as a relief: The drums and bass slow the pace before everything changes to a sense of an emerging choir holding a melody with the music tightening a bit once more. The vocals change from singing the lyrics and shouting jubilantly. Further away, the music tightens into a crescendo with tremolo guitar in the immense flow; it all concludes with a choir emerging and fading away.
Sunken´s music is based on Black Metal, but expands these realms and orchestrations one usually connects with the genre - not only via the immense use of synths and sounds, but also through the use of the bass and the drums. Often in Black Metal, blasting snare drums suck out the air of the music and leave you a bit stressed and disoriented. Sunken also uses blasts from both bass and drums, but has arranged it in a way that gives energy and lifts the sonics. Aside from blasting drums, the drummer also provides depth by hitting on the floor and bass drums. On “Og det er Lykke” (“And that is Happiness”) the opening bass guitar part is quite joyful in its string picking until it all fuses into a surge of distorted guitar, rumbling drums and elongated passages from the bass before it plunges into atmospheric blast arpeggios and shrieking vocals. Throughout, it is the bass that leads the way, and the changes in the flow are sometimes wide open and prolonged, before tightening, sometimes throbbing at the musical foundation. The vocals work hard, shrieking desperately out the lyrics, which have an existential touch to it: “But look, deep in the haze that obscures your eyes / A glaring illusion that is beautiful / Like all phantasms” (translated from Danish).
The music on “Glædesfærd” (“Joy ride”) has arpeggios cascading forward and synths soaring. The vocals are harsh, breathless, and desperate. The ever-cascading music is flowing in abundance with joyful howling from the vocalist, the drums and bass fast as a counterpoint to the distorted arpeggios and synths, it is atmospheric and cinematic. The distorted music gives way to a part of mellow, melodious music, forming a theme and rhythm that has the sense of a waltz, slowly developing a memorable melody to dance along to on a leisurely joyride with lyrics like this: “We’re doing so well, in our beautiful illusion / That we’ve built together / Let’s rise to another day / Where everything is joy and happiness / We’re doing fine here”.
In the last song “Når Livet går på Hæld”(“When Life Goes Downhill”) there is a narrative framework in the lyrics as the last verse points to the first verse sung on the album, and somewhat counters it: “Farewell to the peace that appeared in a flash / Farewell to the happiness we quickly forgot / Farewell to the pleasure we rarely gave ourselves / I guess I’ll find my smile again when life comes to an end”. The soundscape has a sense of yearning with the stretching arpeggios and tremolos. A low-end bass and drums set the slow pace as a foundation for the flowing sonics with howling and growling vocals. The layered sounds form a melodic theme that widens up to a spectacular cinematic soundscape, immersing the howling vocals. The song opens and ends with a mellow piano that also frames the cascading and swelling crescendos constructing the song’s soundscape, which includes a higher-pitched hollow guitar developing the musical theme before the song ends in a gentle and calming mood.
On a final note, there is a sound, intended or not, in the opening of the album. After dark effects, a piercing high-pitched sound shoots out, probably from a synth. It is very close to the same sound in the opening minutes of a song called ”Amourage” from the album Audentity (1983) by Klaus Schulze, the German Electronic musician. Quite fittingly – and maybe a nod - as the Atmospheric Black Metal music that graces this album is ultimately inspired by the Norwegian Black Metal scene of the 80s and 90s, which again was influenced by the German Electronic music scene.
