ALBUM REVIEW: Noktvrn – Der Weg Einer Freiheit
To be nocturnal is to be one with the night. To write a nocturne, you must be inspired by the night. And when Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin wrote 21 nocturnes between 1827 and 1846, he embarked on a study of the intricacies of the human soul. Chopin’s set of piano solos revolutionised the concept of touch and approach to the piano – that every finger has a distinct character. His Night Pieces are a gorgeous realisation of Romantic ideals, presenting the infusion of harmony and melody in technical studies of sound.
On their fifth album Noktvrn, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT embark down their own revolutionary road. Influenced by the composer’s nocturnes, and driven by vocalist and guitarist Nikita Kamprad’s experience of falling into a night-rhythm, they restricted themselves to writing and recording strictly at night. This experimental approach to their progressive black metal results in both their most accessible and challenging album to date. Everything you know and love about DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT is here. Barrels of blast-beats and guttural growls pummel the cavities of your brain as usual, although their penchant for pushing off into the progressive distance far outweighs their classic tropes.
Opener Finisterre II is less of a sequel and more a conclusion to their 2017 album‘s title track, as its atmospheric acoustics bleed into Monument’s orchestral arrangements and horn-sections, summoning the sound of spectral plains. Dive in deeper to Noktvrn and you’ll find DER WEG EINER FREHEIT shift into otherworldly folk (Immortal), dreamy shoegaze (Haven) and avant-garde art-rock (Gegen Das Licht). Its most noticeable departures come in its approach to vocals. Doubling down on their brief brush with clean singing on Finisterre, they embellish their experimental black metal with the golden glow of multi-layered harmonies. Whilst this shift in sound presents a challenge to long-time fans, it unlocks a level of accessibility they’ve not been able to reach until now.
On album highlights Immortal and Haven, they take this one step further by singing in English for the first time ever. The former flirts with blackened doom, as its bellowing vocals tremor across skimming synths and otherworldly folk, whilst the latter slips from Gegen Das Licht’s bewildering blackgaze into a sensual study of shoegaze that wouldn’t feel out of place on DEAFHEAVEN’s Infinite Granite. And that’s where you find the faultline in Noktvrn’s near-perfect compositions. In a landmark year for experimental black metal, you can’t help but feel you’ve heard these spaces and places in sound already. You’d be troubled to avoid picking out pieces of DEAFHEAVEN, MØL and YEAR OF NO LIGHT no matter how many times you listen, and you can’t help but feel like you’re lost in a labyrinth of familiarity.
Perhaps where DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT excel beyond the realm of their peers is in their lyrical approach. Far removed from black metal’s obsession with the occult, Noktvrn studies the human state of mind. Inspired by the way our brains work whilst we sleep and we dream, as well as Kamprad’s interest in symbolising out-of-body experiences like anxiety attacks, the lyrics fit the music like puzzle pieces. Admittedly, these offer far more depth in German then they do in English. Whilst Haven’s harmonic chants of “Will I see the aim/Will I feel what’s right/Will I see the stars/Will I see end” offer melodic depth, they feel hollow in comparison to the poetic nature others offer. For example, a translation of Am Rande Der Dunkelheit offers a hauntingly beautiful take on the claustrophobic darkness of panic attacks: “Before the burden of responsibility comes to me/I was safe in the abundance of light/This is where I return and sow a spark of warm freedom into a cold and dying star.”
In their quest to embrace the darkness of night on Noktvrn, DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT have created their most accessible, most challenging and most masterful album to date. In a year where black metal continues to be bent into new shapes, they stake a claim for the genre’s gold standard.
Rating: 8/10
Noktvrn is set for release on November 19th via Season of Mist.
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