“Black Medium Current” is Dødheimsgard‘s sixth album, which brings a creative and trance-like experience at a scale that uncovers the highly authentic reach beyond the current trends of black metal music. Eight years after the previous record, Dødheimsgard perfected its sonic formula that will keep the band’s trademark in top-class status. The opening track “Et Smelter” offers moments of reflection and begins with a gentle string of clean guitars. When the music unleashes waves of tremolo-picked riffs and blast beats giving us a traditional feel of what a modern black metal band would sound like.

The spontaneous sounds of instruments like the flute, keyboards, and spacey effects add an innovative sonic experience. On the other hand, we hear some remarkable bass guitars, lead guitars, and clean vocals sung in Norwegian language, adding a catchy melody in the next track “Tankespinnerens Smerte”. While sonically ingenious and daringly spacious, the songwriting aspect demands your attention. Silky smooth guitar lines weave through the music, the fluidity of the instruments and the elegance of this seemingly atmospheric and imaginative sonic structure are always metamorphosing.

A multidimensional conceptual framework integrating elements of black metal with atmospheric textures is something Dødheimsgard has perfected through time. “Interstellar Nexus” is where the avant-garde elements intersect the tribal drums and the outlandish shamanic vocals, the drums add an extra oomph to the avant-garde industrial beats. It’s like Dødheimsgard experimenting with different hallucinogenic drugs and pushing the music out of the box towards jazzy and electronic spheres and transforming into something bizarre.

The album cover art is simply gorgeous, and it’s somehow reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s classic album “Dark Side of the Moon”. From the refined guitar riffs mingling with spacey electronic beats, on the following track “It Does Not Follow” Dødheimsgard veers towards a more bizarre and sophisticated realm of the avant-garde. The music gives you an impression that you are voyaging in deep spectral space full of colors and sounds, the guitars often come with a force of tremolos and are embedded with furious blast beats. It’s like an instrument that wields a sense of power and drags you through otherworldly dimensions. Furthermore, the keyboards are masterly layered and there are many vocal effects used in these songs, from the clean spoken passages to the grim black metal growls.

And while the listener is on the verge of being bewildered by the twisted song structures, “Voyager” serves as an interval track solely played by the piano. The dark opening of “Halow” shows the intricacies of the song arrangement in taking the complex and multidimensional nature of avant-garde black metal, think of Arcturus as a hint. Shimmering synth melodies ebb and flow like a cosmic storm creating a perfect backdrop for the colliding guitar riffs and the towering clean vocals. Dødheimsgard blends lush instrumentals by utilizing ambient keyboard momentum, and the same can be said about the pacing of the guitars and the drums.

“Black Medium Current” presents a unique sonic flamboyance that makes it quite rare in experimenting with the aesthetic of avant-garde. The music provides a vast theatrical entrance to your imagination and often emphasizes progressive ideas that pave a bridge between the unbridgeable abyss and the vastness of the deep space. The drums wash through the wafting baseline, clean vocal parts, and create a distinctive rhythm. Electronic spacey effects vibe in more often allowing the synth to create polyphonic textures and integrate the heavy barrage of the guitars.

Tight blast beats and piercing black tremolos wields a double-edged spear to enhance the flow of the dark atmosphere in the following track “Det tomme kalde mørke”. This track suddenly transitions to a full black metal assault, with slow mid-pacing guitars followed by heavy slabs of the drums that push some atmospheric synth hooks and harmonic clean vocals. The final minutes of this track evolve in some cold guitar hooks and ambient synth backdrop that builds up cold and celestial dreamy qualities on “Abyss Perihelion Transit”.

Mastermind Vicotnik slowly unravels the riddles of his composition, the splendid juxtaposition of light and darkness and the surreal soundscapes of the swirling music conveys his own unique flair. Lush saturated atmosphere brightens the sonic landscape, giving you a feeling of intergalactic space with soulful clean vocal loops which creates a varied atmosphere that is often riddling. The final track “Requiem Aeternum” features rich instruments like the piano, you’ll find yourself immersed in deep oceanic melodies as you will discover the subtle layers.

Your first upcoming chance to hear some of this masterpiece live is Steelfest 2023 in Finland, don’t miss out on that! Check out more about the event here.

Links