EP REVIEW: Det Er Ingenting Annet – Tornekrone

Russia’s TORNEKRONE are a promising prospect for fans of rawer forms of black metal. The one woman band takes a significant influence from the demo’s of 90’s black metal acts, whilst adding a generous helping of dungeon synth into the mix, managing to encapsulate the best of early black metal whilst distinguishing their sound from many other solo acts with the same adoration for the genres primordial years. Having only released two standalone tracks, 2019’s Permafrodst and last years Død Skog, Det Er Ingenting Annet marks the bands first full length demo, and marking the bands most impressive output to date.

Huset Mitt Er Et Steinslott, starts upon a powerful piece of dungeon synth that quickly gives way to a dense and murky form of black metal, with a great, cavernous drum sound and ferocious vocals providing some great focal points. The guitars, which are buried under the headier aspects of this songs sound, provide a lean, sharp edge to proceedings, whilst allowing the keyboards, drums and vocals to carry the sound. It’s a great slab of raw black metal with a lot of interesting elements peppered throughout it. The brief but beguiling Døde Vinterånd serves as an instrumental keyboard piece that couples a primitive gothic bombast with the low fi production, which ultimately gives this grandiose offering a dark and foreboding tone that works really well. Hav Av Hat, with its more minimalist, droning keys, repetitive guitar melodies and haunting, arid vocal deliveries, has a slight whiff of the very best of classic BURZUM about it, with the spartan musicianship and equally stripped back vocal style lending a sombre, dramatic feel to the music on display, leaning more towards an electronic, and ritualistic, sound than the earlier tracks.

Alt Er Dødt Her, another short, but incredibly impressive, instrumental affair, makes use of soaring chords and steady, rhythmic percussion to grab the listeners attention, with a few memorable hooks spread liberally in amongst, once again providing a short interlude between the albums longer and more black metal centric numbers. Snart Skinner Solen Fra Oven retains much of the glorious synth sound of the previous song and imbues it with a contrasting, black metal undercurrent. The bleak and mid-paced approach works fantastically, with the synths remaining the main focus of this song and its character, whilst being able to benefit from the more visceral metal flourishes, resulting in a track that is bleakly beautiful. Er Endelig Slutt På Sorgen, much like the majority of this record, has a strong dungeon synth. Dark ambient flavour to it, with massive keyboards dominating the overall sound, acting as one final instrumental offering that does a great job of bringing the albums sound full circle whilst giving it a magnificent, almost cinematic climax.

To call this a black metal record with dungeon synth elements is a bit misleading; rather it’s a dungeon synth record with a few touches of raw black metal. The black metal components within the TORNEKRONE‘s sound do have, the repetitive tropes that many one person black metal acts fall victim too, but this is overshadowed by the powerful and engrossing accompaniments that come courtesy of the synths. On the whole, this is an impressive and captivating demo from start to finish from TORNEKRONE that manages to make the grittier production value work alongside the grandiose approach of the keyboards. Det Er Ingenting Annet should appeal to fans of old school black metal demos and classic dungeon synth alike.

Rating: 7/10

Det Er Ingenting Annet is out now via Northern Silence Productions.