ALBUM REVIEW: A Celebration In Honor Of Death – Ancient Wisdom

Finally breaking a 17-year hiatus, Swedish black metal veteran Marcus E. Norman has resurrected ANCIENT WISDOM, his solo alter ego, in order to release their latest opus, A Celebration In Honor Of Death. Seeing as it is the solo project’s first release since 2004’s Cometh Doom, Cometh Death, could this release compare to his earlier work, or will it fall flat after all this time?

We begin with Haec Est Mors Secunda, which offers up a fairly simple riff propped up with choral backing and the striking of bells. Layers of drums and keyboard lines are added which build the drama up in preparation for the big riff change and the bulk of the song. It’s tense and dramatic with a strong focus on the operatic elements, making a solid introductory piece for the album. We run straight on then into Breaking The Circle Of Life, which keeps the slow pace and basic construction of the backing riffs but overlays them sporadically with a kind of distortion-tinged eastern sounding guitar line. This works fine until the back half of the track, where a solo piano line is introduced and traded off against a chuggy riff which gives the whole thing a tinge of an uninspired DIMMU BORGIR track.

Moving on to Architect Of Death – Laudamus Te, we find yet another slow, clunking riff and unremarkable drumming. Possibly the worst offender though is a sequence of chugging triplets around the halfway point which do a very basic call-and-response with that tinkly piano which seems to be something of an ill-fitting main feature. At around the eight-minute mark of plodding riffs and faux-orchestral fluff, a listener could be forgiven for finding this stuff somewhat tedious.

Following this, we find The Coronation. Opening with another plodding sequence of triplets, the listener could be forgiven for biting their knuckle in preparation for eight more minutes of meandering nonsense, but here we actually find probably the tightest, most coherent and most traditionally black metal experience we’ve had so far, we see tremolo, double bass drums and mournful melody that actually gels together and makes for a much more stimulating listen than what has gone before.

The same can actually be said for Those Who Do Not Exist, which is possibly the best track on the album. It still sits in the slower paced vein, but features moody atmosphere, some solid rhythm work and lets the synth and piano take a back seat in favour of a long, morose solo that arches over the track like bleak midwinter rainclouds. It’s utterly miserable but fantastically put together, a real strong point.

As we progress towards the album’s closing moments, we must pass through And God Saw. It begins with a quick riff which fans the flame of hope for those who wanted to see a bit of chaos and violence, but it slowly ratchets down into that familiar low gear and dresses it with keyboard fluff again before plodding on for eight-or-so minutes. It seems at this late stage that the slow playing is becoming something of a crutch, that it is the form of playing in black metal that allows for the most creeping and pervasive of icy atmospheres to develop, but any listener would be defied to not at least wonder what ANCIENT WISDOM could achieve if they really let the hammer fall. Closer Towards Your Destruction introduces some interesting themes, namely distorted electronic drumming and rasping, bile-infused vocals before slipping back into the familiar groove. A children’s choir is introduced unexpectedly towards the end and the endless repetition of the titular line eventually fades into a solemn keyboard outro.

This is one of those albums where the reception is entirely subject to the individual preferences of whoever is listening. Those who prefer their black metal to be fast, dirty and uncompromising should probably avoid it, as the ‘black metal’ part of the ‘atmospheric black metal’ tag is largely employed as a rhythmic backdrop to the ‘atmospheric’ part. The heroes of this story are not blazing riffs and thunderous drumwork, but keyboards, choirs and piano lines.

On the flip side, however, a fan of the operatic, symphonic and atmospheric schools will probably delighted with its thoroughly chilling drama. It is unfortunate then, that the author definitely falls into the former camp, thereby finding A Celebration In Honor Of Death to have some redeemable moments, but to largely be underwhelming, flat and tedious. Sorry.

Rating: 5/10

A Celebration In Honor Of Death is out now via Avantgarde Music.

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