(written by Islander)
On March 21st Fiadh Productions and Snow Wolf Records will co-release Four Sorrows, a four-way split among bands around the world who deserve your close attention. Those bands, who are carving their own path through the realms of black metal, are Starer (USA), Myrvandrer (Norway), Ambergaze (Mexico), and Mistral (Poland). As an explanation of how the split came to be, we’ve seen this statement by the person behind Starer (and Snow Wolf):
I have been a huge fan of Mistral since both our debut albums released together on Folkvangr Records back in January 2021. Janek has become a good friend and I’m thrilled to be working together. All credit to him for introducing me to two amazing bands Ambergaze and Myrvandrer and convincing them to share their incredible music with us.
What we have for you today is a premiere stream of this new split, which includes one new song from each band, preceded by a bit of background about the artists and some thoughts about what you will hear. (Here’s a hint: the music is quite diverse and mostly beyond the bounds of traditional/conventional black metal.)
STARER (U.S.)
Kentucky-based Starer has been on our own radar screen for a good long while, since discovering this solo project’s 2021 debut album 18° Below the Horizon. Two more albums have followed that one, along with many singles and several EPs. The recorded output has been constant, even though the person behind Starer is also involved in numerous other bands (including Primeval Well) and solo musical endeavors.
Starer opens Four Sorrows with “Upon a Day Came Sorrow Into Me“. The title foretells what’s coming, but not all of what’s coming.
In tones rough and raw but also piercing, the opening riff creates a distressing harmony, a manifestation of anguish and hopelessness that puts nerves on edge. It continues to dig in as the drums begin to boom and bound, and then transforms into a dense and deleterious swarm of even greater pain, driven by blasting percussion, augmented by spine-tingling screams.
But don’t think the music has reached its crest of intensity. It rises and expands, creating a swath of shattering torment through which that piercing lead guitar writhes in agony. Yet the music also locks into a fast-thrusting, head-hooking groove while the guitar rings and warps like a miserable siren, backed by exhilarating drum-fills, and it swirls with symphonic scope and power.
Starer also backs off the intensity, creating a haunting interlude in which the guitar rings in chime-like tones and keys shimmer. Then the music rises and spreads again in a kind of terrible splendor, and the vocals change to deeply sorrowful singing as the drums boom again.
Breathtaking stuff….
MYRVANDRER (Norway)
Myrvandrer is another solo project, this one from Sortland in the far north of Norway (or so says its Bandcamp page), a town apparently referred to as “the blue city” because so many of the houses are painted that color. Myvandrer has been active since 2019, with a discography that now includes two albums, an EP, and a handful of singles.
For Four Sorrows, Myrvandrer contributed a song called “Alle Mine Blomster” (“All My Flowers”). It’s an adventurously mercurial experience, fast-changing and head-spinning. Though the vocals sound like a vicious goblin and the drums furiously hammer and somersault, the layered fretwork jubilantly twists and turns.
The music also suddenly shifts, yielding the floor to piano keys, jazzy arpeggios, catchy beats, meandering and musing melodies, and somber spoken words — and then changes again, going feverishly wild as the guitars and drums ecstatically spasm. And then changes again, as everything slows and becomes beautiful and dreamlike — and then both rapidly thrusting and panoramic.
In short, Myrvandrer pack an abundance of stylistic, emotional, and rhythmic ingredients into the song, one wonderful surprise after another. It creates a startling contrast with the way Starer opened the proceedings
AMBERGAZE (Mexico)
Next up on the split is the Tijuana band Ambergaze, which began as a solo project but has since expanded. They debuted with a single in 2022 and followed that with a first full-length the next year, Dawn’s Void & the Duskborn. Metal-Archives labels their music Post-Black Metal. Their song for the split is “Scions of Teal Plumage“.
This song reinforces the growing impression of a split that’s very diverse. It’s darker in its moods than the Myrvandrer escapade, but beautifully crafted in its shades of brightness and shadow. The guitars are both glittering and abrading, the riffing both forlorn and grimly angry.
Here the vocals come across like strangled screams and snarls, a vicious kind of torment, and the intensity builds to match them. The rhythms rumble and race, and sweeping synths cause the music to sear. But strummed chords and poignantly ringing notes bring in moods of wistfulness and regret (still backed by lush keys and vivid beats).
All this happens before you’re even halfway through the song, and it continues to ebb and flow, reaching shoegaze-like zeniths of electrifying scope and power, and again shifting into gentle and mesmerizing interludes of melancholy beauty and jazzy beats far beyond the bounds of black metal. Even when the music spirals up and panoramically out again, the lead instrument has a sax-like tone, soulful and soaring.
MISTRAL (Poland)
Last, but of course not least, we turn to Warsaw-based Mistral. They made their recording advent with a debut album named Somnifer in 2020. Since then they’ve released an EP (Stasis), a second album (In the Throes of Losing Love), and a single last year (“The All-Seeing Eye“). The Mistral song on Four Sorrows is “To Weather the Change“.
And again, by the time you reach this point, you probably won’t have any idea what’s coming next (unless you already have some familiarity with Mistral‘s inclinations). What comes next is more of a kindred spirit to the Ambergaze song than the other two.
In many respects it’s lush and lavish in its layering of guitars and synths, warranting the genre tag “blackgaze” (though I detect elements of post-punk in the mix too), but with a yearning emotional quality that strives within the sweeping cascades.
The sweeping and glittering nature of the music provides abundant room for a very talented rhythm section to show their stuff, and man, do they. And while the vocals at first are a screaming hostile menace, they’re eventually replaced by spectral singing that seems to echo off clouds.
Mistral also provide a slow, gentle, and haunting interlude, a lonely kind of contemplation, sorrowful but also mystical. That very talented rhythm section begin building the song’s energy, and a chiming lead guitar and throbbing bass join in. The music swells and elevates, sparkles and swirls, achieving wondrous splendor.
And with that, we’ll leave you to experience this really excellent split for yourselves:
Fiadh will release Four Sorrows on cassette tape, and Snow Wolf will handle the CD edition. For more info and to order, check out the links below.
https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/
https://snowwolfrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://starer.bandcamp.com/album/four-sorrows
https://www.facebook.com/starermusic
https://myrvandrer.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/TrueMyrvandrer/
https://ambergaze.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ambergaze.band/
https://mistralmetal.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/mistralbandofficial/