Striborg - Sin Nanna Still Haunts

Even the rare artist must evolve and Sin Nanna shows himself capable. He has always plundered the depths of buzzed distortion and melancholia, but his last two albums, ‘Perceiving the World with Hate,’ and now, this new one, ‘Southwest Passage,’ seem to drift toward a new island of sound – one of rock-like riffs and upbeats buried under his signature blizzard of distortion. For instance, the starting moments of ‘Perceiving the World with Hate’ are slow and easy. They work their way into more aggression and higher speed strumming and drumming. ‘Southwest Passage’s,’ opening track on the other hand, plays that middle-of-the-track tempo from the beginning and just adds drums and vocals as the song progresses. Also, Sin Nanna’s normal reliance on keyboards has been put replaced with their use as minor-accompaniment. The effect overall is thus one of more guitar savvy metal and a little less on the depressive black metal that one expects from the Tazmanian.

Let’s not jump the gun here. Striborg’s new effort is equally full of hate. Case in point, the second track is titled, “All Contempt Reciprocated.” This track starts slowly with deliberate saws on the axe, sounds that imply an executioner setting up for his work. Also, the vocals are not just serpent-hiss growls, but are filled with a particular distaste for all that is right and good. It even sounds like Sin Nanna has focused his voice around the use of some machine, a wonderful effect that emphasizes the growing foreboding that a powerful anti-human is on the prowl from the forest. Sin Nanna the Moon-God still rules the night and he proves the point by taking the same sharp deliberate sound that opens “All Contempt Reciprocated” and tunes it into the most disturbing death bell in repetition on “Human Extinction.” But that repeating death-bell groan effortlessly rears its head and before you realize it, changes and strikes with strong guitar riffs and proper black metal drums Striborg style through the track heavier and rockier to the end.


Sin Nanna’s raging guitars and heavy drum segments are not how he closes this artfully structured short album. He reminds his listeners via a subtle keyboard infused, slightly cacophonic multi-layered set of sounds, all of three minutes and twenty seconds, that the “Requiem for a Lonely Ghost” must be heard and reprioritized front and center. For Striborg is still out there wandering aloof from our co-modified culture… haunting.

1. Southwest Passage
2. All Contempt Reciprocated
3. Human Extinction
4. Dwelling In The Fullmoon Forests
5. Obscure And Darkened Contemplation
6. Requiem For A Lonely Ghost
Displeased Records
Reviewer: Jesse
Oct 28, 2009
Next review: Sainc - Pathogen

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