Just three months into the year, and we have already had some big albums of atmospheric black metal that elevates the spirit in Mare Cognitum, and Koldovstvo, and the elemental, naturalistic evocations of Fuath, and promise of a new Panopticon…..
…..and yet…..they are not Morke.
Four years after our introduction to Eric Wing’s solo project through the classically-ornate self-titled album, and the oceanic wilds of Sirens, and three years in the making, We Are the River is the appropriately titled channelling of noise and wresting personal demons.
Charged with the naturalistic energies of Cascadian USBM, and emotionally raw melodicism harnessed from its Appalachian influences, this album charts a surging course from spring to sea, through gently winding passages to violently raging torrents in a masterfully composed ebb and flow.
Take one of the early highlights of many in Lost, where melodic riffs chew into the rhythmic passage of the track, looping round in a delirious little circles until they implode and crunch through themselves into distorted eddies, or the doble-whammy of Redemption and Brumous around the half-way point, where a riff motif repeats into an expanding gloriously actualised peak, that pops into the next track taking the intensity up another level.
This will be one of those albums that quietly overwhelms you until you realise you listened to nothing else all week.
Self-released, available from the Morke Bandcamp now, but emphatically worthy of a full, physical release should anyone wish to give it one:
