The songwriting is just as multifaceted now as it was then, if not more so Catacombs found Malist exploring the concept of… well, exploration, whereas Mantle sounds like the work of seasoned explorers. The difference between what one might expect from something labeled as atmospheric black metal versus what to expect from Malist was something I stressed when reviewing their debut, In the Catacombs of Time, and I really can’t stress it enough this time around. The fact that post black metal isn’t so clearly at peace with its own identity doesn’t help anyone, either my point is that atmospheric black metal is a pretty useless handle nowadays, so when you see it attributed to Malist‘s sophomore album, To Mantle the Rising Sun, ignore it entirely. Techniques such as building reverb-laden tremolo walls of sound and employing shifting clean/heavy dynamics have proven themselves incredibly efficient means of lending black metal’s sound a more robust sense of gravitas which we can label as atmosphere, yet this has lead to post black metal – which essentially relies solely on those two tricks – largely co-opting the atmospheric tag, rendering it a bit broad. In theory, the term describes music that chiefly adheres to black metal rvles, while also utilizing various sonic tools typically found beyond the box ov black metal tropes, in order to create a much more – you guessed it – atmospheric variant of black metal.
Atmospheric black metal is as rife with possibilities as it is with generic clones.
0 kommentar(er)
