ALBUM REVIEW: Inheritance – Musk Ox

There’s something so intoxicating about this release from MUSK OX, their first in seven years. It draws you in from the very first moments and guides you, through the highs and lows of its tempo and emotive playing, through a dark wilderness. Using just a violin, a cello and a classical guitar, the Canadian trio build a world that is at once warm and human but also carries that cold atmosphere that comes with the best of black metal.

The opening two-parter Inheritance perfectly demonstrates this. The first part, Premonition, is slower and full of foreboding, the instruments slowly moving out of the fog and swirling around each other. It’s dark and mournful; a beautifully textured and endearing trudge towards a future unknown. The companion piece, Hindsight, is appropriately enough far clearer. Reworking some of the compositions, pulling different aspects to the forefront.

There’s still a mystery to the track. A hidden beauty. But over 17 minutes the band explore and dissect it, the strings interacting in new and exciting ways. The tempo changes, new characters appear to the listener, the story MUSK OX are telling adapts. There are moments that feel like a sprint through the forest, either away from, or towards something. It builds to stunning showcases of their skill and ends on something ever so discordant and cacophonic.

Memoriam continues to offer deep, complex compositions, leaning back into the mournful tones and slowing the pace, but with real beauty. The way MUSK OX use tempo and tone in their work should be a lesson for any instrumental band. Each track is distinct from the one before, but they bleed together into a cohesive and tangible story. Pulling together the black metal atmosphere with traditional folk melodies they create a sound that is both grounded and ethereal; that harkens back to the past but drives the genre forward.

The penultimate track, Ritual, brings everything that the band has done – both on this album and across their discography – to its natural conclusion. It is, by far, their most accomplished track, making 11minutes feel like seconds. Stunning and emotive in the way classical music can be while retaining that intimacy that comes with folk, it soars and brings the listener along. It is hard to think of a band that conjures images in the listener’s head. Ritual recalls exactly what you imagine a real ritual to sound like; the clichés of white-gowned men and women dancing in a circle a symptom of this writer’s inactive imagination. It does MUSK OX a disservice to rely on these crutches to describe a sound that is so intense.

The same is true of Weightless, with its flurrying strings that lift you out of the mire, above everything that the band has conjured over the previous 45 minutes. It’s a glorious end to what is one of the most unique and exciting albums so far this year. Few things can be worth a seven-year wait and yet Inheritance is one of those rare things.

Rating: 9/10

Inheritance is out now via self-release.

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