ALBUM REVIEW: Of Darkness & Light – Årabrot
About 20 years ago in Sweden ÅRABROT was born, the duo of husband and wife Kjetil Nernes and Karin Park, and now two decades later they have recorded their newest album at the deconsecrated church come home studio? Pretty neat. It hasn’t exactly been an easy path for the closest of duos; having won the battle with throat cancer almost ten years ago Nernes went through the throes of enlightenment on life and having a new found gratitude for being above ground – you know, the expected feelings if you were to have a scrape with death.
Of Darkness & Light isn’t an endeavour that came to pass over a span of months or even a year, there are songs on the record that have been in safe keeping for years. Time invested will reap the rewards and certainly has done in this case, everything sounds so well developed, produced spectacularly and has a combination of genres that you wouldn’t expect to work very well together. They’ve got noise rock, some trancy 60s moments, folk, indie… you name it and there’s a good chance it’s inside Of Darkness & Light. Opening track Hangman’s House brings caustic guitars and anthemic choruses only to be followed up by the playful You Cast Long Shadows which instead of sticking with the full on approach sees ÅRABROT insist on a more slinky and weird guise for the time being.
To try and boil it down the best definition you could come to for this record would be a melting pot of nuanced folk and noise rock, not equal measures of both but more like a Frankenstein amalgamation of the best bits of each. Speaking of spooky, Horrors Of The Past is one deep vocal away from jerking into Monster Mash. Plenty of the weird concoctions that ÅRABROT offer up have the music and the brilliance that you can get lost in easily, you might miss the often profound emotion behind a lot of the tracks even if they seem simple enough for you to stick them on and just enjoy at face value. Cathedral Light under the surface and amongst the lyrics can be interesting depending on how you look at it, as they question how religion motivates someone.
This is a record that with each listen something new is to be discovered, like a musical roguelike, it will age immaculately. All of the drama and character that the married couple have to offer is something that should keep fans begging for more with each release; something thematic like Of Darkness & Light could have the gravitas of a cult classic being released for the first time and ÅRABROT deserve to drink that in.
Rating: 9/10
Of Darkness & Light is out now via Pelagic Records.
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