(written by Islander)
With just a couple of weeks left in the year we still have time to make 2024 the third year in a row when we’ve premiered a song for the Dutch black metal band Schavot, the solo project work of multi-instrumentalist Floris Velthuis, who is also a member of Asgrauw, Meslamtaea, and Sagenland.
It’s fair to say, as Floris has himself acknowledged, that nostalgia is a significant inspiration for Schavot‘s music. He has been active in black metal since the ’90s, and a nostalgia for the Scandinavian black metal he grew up with gave birth to the Schavot project. Beyond that, his lyrics have been inspired by “the twilight world of the past” — by old Dutch folk tales and history.
And so, in both respects, Schavot‘s music could be considered a journey into the past. Yet as people know who’ve already encountered Schavot‘s previous releases, including the first two albums (Galgenbrok and Kronieken uit de nevel) and the excellent 2023 split Verloren vertellingen, the music is far from the kind of dull wistfulness that nostalgia can sometimes produce.
Today’s premiere underscores that point. The name of the song is “De lantaarn spreekt de weg,” and it’s from a new Schavot album named Verstrikt in halflicht that we’re happily helping announce today in advance of its February 27 release by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions.
The song you’re about to hear was inspired by old Dutch tales of will-o’-the-whisps appearing at night, and leading unsuspecting travelers into the marshes. The music evokes visions of ghostly apparitions with mesmerizing appeal, and it also evokes perils much worse than getting lost and struggling to find your way out.
In fact, the music is immediately both eerie and perilous. The drums furiously hammer, the bass feverishly throbs, the vocals ravenously howl, and some combination of guitar and keys soar and writhe, intensely enveloping the listener in sounds both shrill and otherworldly.
Floris snarls other words; the beats pound and pop; and the music swirls, gleams, and seductively beckons in ethereal wailing tones, slowly drifting in the midst of assaulting drums and vocals. But the glittering guitar and keys also sound ecstatic, reveling in the expectation of whatever these haunts have planned for us wanderers.
The ethereal melodies also sound like the unfolding of elegant spells, and a guitar solo creates a spectacle of wondrous splendor, leading us further into this domain where demonic voices, battering ferocity, and madness also reign.
Indeed, the whole song is a wondrous spectacle, an unusual amalgam of richly layered sounds and sensations that are both ferocious and bedazzling, both viscerally hard-charging and enchanting, and all of it numinous.
Verstrikt in halflicht was written, recorded and produced by Floris over the course of a year in his home studio, and it was mastered by Devi Hisgen with partly analog equipment for the desired nostalgic sound.
Although Schavot is a one-man band, Floris also asked friends to contribute some lyric fragments, vocal pieces, trumpets, and guitar solos. The album is completed by the evocative cover art of Kris Verwimp.
The album will be released digitally and on vinyl — 100 sunburst (black/yellow) and 100 smoke (trans orange/black). Void Wanderer and War Productions recommend it for fans of Obtained Enslavement, Emperor, Ancient, Dimmu Borgir, and Bal Sagoth.
PRE-ORDER:
https://voidwanderer.com/product/schavot-verstikt-in-halflicht-lp/
https://voidwandererproductions.bandcamp.com/album/verstrikt-in-halflicht
https://war-productions.org
SCHAVOT:
https://www.facebook.com/Schavotblackmetal
https://www.instagram.com/schavot.band/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ljEjOYC641bBs13aGTEs8?si=laEbVRzXSiCuxNoxkqBKEA