Striborg - The Forboding Silence
Sin Nanna has asked a lot of his listeners over the years because he understands that real musical and artistic challenges can not be written off with a few words or platitudes. His newest release, FORBODING SILENCE, released on Displeased Records is no different and in fact stands as a challenge to his own persona as doom-metal artist or whatever other category into which one chooses to place his work. I say this because even though there has always been a doom-ambient quality to his work and lots of depressive moods, FORBODING SILENCE is even more atmospheric and doom-ambient. It plays in a world of dense fog we have not imagined since Sin Nanna’s first albums. The “metal” elements are there of course but the slow evil whisper is enunciated to a new beauty. I feel that the self, the persona of the artist singer, is as much broken and eroding in this release as much as the heavy rains and storms that tear about the forests. For instance, “A Lonely Walk In A Desolate Cold Pine Forest,” the second track, is almost eleven minutes but the heaviest elements are the ritual drumming segments about the eight minute mark. Nature has taken a new victim but the death rite has produced new awesome births.
The segments of music are cut in-between by audio clips of voices talking about hate and death, a brand new step for Striborg as far as I know. And the first depressive metal track after “Interval 1” is a distorted guitar, squarely drummed until it picks up into real “metal.” I am going to make the statement that at the end of the day, FORBODING SILENCE, though it may not be my particular favorite Striborg, will remain his most innovative because halfway through the CD, Sin Nanna lightens the mood with some almost up-beat metal and some amazingly clean bass riffing. His scratchy vox accompany this of course, the great pleasure of his art, before “Interval III” re-darkens (in word and mode of sound) the album’s aura via melancholia of keys on the board reminiscent of the one and only Burzum that opens the “Introduction II” to the CD’s closure tracks. What skill of song organization Striborg exhibits on this effort. His skills as loner metal artist are completely transparent on FORBODING SILENCE.
The segments of music are cut in-between by audio clips of voices talking about hate and death, a brand new step for Striborg as far as I know. And the first depressive metal track after “Interval 1” is a distorted guitar, squarely drummed until it picks up into real “metal.” I am going to make the statement that at the end of the day, FORBODING SILENCE, though it may not be my particular favorite Striborg, will remain his most innovative because halfway through the CD, Sin Nanna lightens the mood with some almost up-beat metal and some amazingly clean bass riffing. His scratchy vox accompany this of course, the great pleasure of his art, before “Interval III” re-darkens (in word and mode of sound) the album’s aura via melancholia of keys on the board reminiscent of the one and only Burzum that opens the “Introduction II” to the CD’s closure tracks. What skill of song organization Striborg exhibits on this effort. His skills as loner metal artist are completely transparent on FORBODING SILENCE.
1. Intro
2. A Lonely Walk In A Desolate Cold Pine Forest
3. Interval
4. The Foreboding Silence
5. Interval II
6. Weeping Abandoned Spirit
7. Interval III
8. Intro II
9. My Journey Through The Hills And Paddocks
10. Somnambulistic Nightmares Return
11. Outro
2. A Lonely Walk In A Desolate Cold Pine Forest
3. Interval
4. The Foreboding Silence
5. Interval II
6. Weeping Abandoned Spirit
7. Interval III
8. Intro II
9. My Journey Through The Hills And Paddocks
10. Somnambulistic Nightmares Return
11. Outro
