ALBUM REVIEW: Livslede – Sunken

Denmark’s SUNKEN may not be that well known, but their excellent music, with its perfect blend of Black Metal and heady Ambient elements, makes them one of the best hidden gems of the Atmospheric Black Metal scene at large. Since the release of their The Crackling of Embers demo soon after changing their name from ARESCET back in 2013, the band have been on a solid upward trajectory, with their first full length, Departure, turning heads and establishing a name for the band. Their second album, Livslede, sees the band refine and develop their already beguiling musical brew even more, resulting in an extremely impressive record that takes a great formula and begins to push it into much more enthralling and angelic territories.

After the heady ambience of Forlist sets an ethereal tone, Ensomhed starts off the album proper with a sublime blend of glorious, clean guitars and much weightier, soaring ones that give this track an incredibly epic, atmospheric sound that immediately grabs the listeners attention. Interspersed with sparse melodies and harsh, acerbic shrieks, it does an excellent job of balancing grandiose elements with the denser, more aggressive ones, making for a huge, powerful sound that makes this relatively steady and focused offering extremely beguiling from the first note to the last.

Foragt follows in much the same vein as the previous track, but with a noticeable shift towards more grating and discordant guitar playing and vocals, along with a quicker, more urgent pace, which ultimately gives this song a more fierce and bellicose side. There’s still plenty of great, angelic flourishes and hazy clean sections that help significantly lighten the sound, but there’s a definite shift towards a darker sound here. Delirium, with its more prominent bass hooks, delicate drums and far more subdued guitars, proves to be a massive departure from the qualities that have defined the album up until this point. stripping back the black metal in favour of a sanguine ambience, the music is so much more relaxed than the earlier numbers on the album, something that acts as a great change of pace, and makes this song stand out for all the right reasons.

Dødslængsel picks up on its predecessor’s thread, but allows for expansive guitars, a massive drum sound and hideous, snarling vocals to inform the bombast that the atmospherics provide, rather than allow that aspect of the music to carry the song. As it progresses, it does ratchet up the intensity, culminating in a bombastic second half that makes for an fantastic conclusion to this record, giving this a vast, domineering sound without fully embracing the more visceral black metal of the albums first few songs.

The most obvious change in SUNKEN‘s sound when comparing Livslede with its predecessor, Departure, is that this has a much softer, and indeed more sublime musical approach overall. That isn’t to say this album doesn’t have its more intense moments, because it certainly does, but it’s clear that the balance between the black metal and atmospheric components of this band’s music has shifted firmly in favour of the atmospheric, with the last two tracks especially being the best representations of this stylistic change, whilst still maintaining much of the darkness and impressive musicianship that made their debut so great.

This grand and decidedly ambience drenched sound serves the band well, setting them apart from the majority of their contemporaries. A further lurch in this direction on whatever they have planned next could very well establish SUNKEN at the forefront of black metal’s more sanguine side in years to come.

Rating: 8/10

Livslede is out now via Vendetta Records.

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