ALBUM REVIEW: Syning – Syning

Featuring members of MANES, WHOREDOM RIFE and KNOKKELKLANG, SYNING are a band that brings together musicians who have each separately left their mark upon the Norwegian black metal underground at various times, from its inception to the present. And even though this band creates music that definitely falls into the black metal category, it would be very hard to call them a “straight-forward” black metal act. Coupling a morose and decidedly raw sound with glorious acoustic sections and a heavy use of ambient keyboards, their sound is much more diverse than each members’ musical origins and contributions might suggest. Their self-titled debut album, as a result, has a sound that is instantly recognisable as Norwegian black metal, albeit a fairly minimalist version of it, whilst being quite distinct in its own regard.

Atter Igjen Kommer Mørket Krypende eases the listener in with ethereal ambience, eventually giving way to slow, brooding guitars and spartan drums, making for a bleak sound that is topped off with coarse, guttural vocals which only add further to the sepulchral quality of the music. Although the first few minutes are very repetitive and hypnotic, the music suddenly veers down a far more chaotic and harsh route, with speed driven hooks lending this an aggressive sound, complimented by the bombastic, gothic keyboards. It’s a great, slow burning track to open the record on, with plenty of twists and turns musically that make it all the more engrossing.

Et Siste Skrik starts, as the first offering did, with an atmospheric keyboard section, but the other elements come in a lot quicker this time around, the steady drumming and soaring methodical, droning guitars having a great contrast courtesy of some soaring acoustic guitars, which provide a lighter undercurrent to the bulk of this song, piercing through the rest of the music intermittently and giving what is, on the whole, a relatively robust, groove-laden number a softer edge that works quite well. It’s every bit as lengthy and grandiose of the first song on the album, but does away with the more cacophonous side of the bands style entirely, something that this song could have benefited from, especially within its closing minutes.

Fortapt, a comparatively short and punchy affair next to the monolithic duo that precede it, sees the ambient side of the band on full display, with the keyboards feeling much denser and higher in the mix than they did earlier on. It’s a great mixture of solid dark ambient and minimalist acoustics, with equally reserved vocals and percussion giving this a completely different sound and approach to the rest of the record, with the darker moments being stripped away entirely in favour of a beguiling, dramatic change of pace that serves as an epic climax.

Although this album clearly has one foot planted very firmly within black metal, to just describe this as purely a black metal record would be overlooking quite a few ingredients that set it apart from many similar albums. Yes, there’s some dark guitar work with a raw production that will be familiar to fans of black metal, and this is far from the first record to make use of acoustic guitars and keyboards. But the use of all these distinct parts is done quite a bit differently than you might expect from a normal black metal album, with each individual element serving to craft an atmosphere as opposed to just throwing in a few extra riffs to keep things interesting, making the album as a whole, instead of just one song, seem all the more powerful. SYNING still do have a few minor kinks to iron out within their sound, but as far as first efforts go, it’s hard to think of one that’s as cohesive, on the whole, as this one.

Rating: 8/10

Syning is out now via Terratur Possessions.