siLLy puPPy Kathrine Elizabeth Shepard better known by her stage name SYLVAINE has spent the last decade utilizing her skills as a classically trained multi-instrument to craft her unique mix of post-rock, shoegaze and black metal which showcases not only her instrumental talents but her siren-like vocal deliveries and best of all an uncanny ability to craft dreamy soundscapes that sign a truce with their caustic kin of angsty black metal shoegaze = blackgaze in a way unlike any other.

SYLVAINE is back with her 4th full album NOVA which once again features her as the solo performer with the assistance of Dorian Mansiaux as a session drummer and a competent violinist and cellist. Each album has subsequently found SYLVAINE adding more elements of ferociously fueled black metal in the company of her established dream pop fueled post-rock and one listen to her newest release NOVA will make you consider if the ethereal darkwave Dead Can Dance has suddenly added black metal to its neverending recipe.

Existing somewhere between the world of dreamy world of ethereal wave and the more caustic nature of blackgaze, SYLVAINE has crafted a unique niche that captures the essence of all the aforementioned musical genres and deftly merges them into a unifying force which is what makes NOVA such a divine musical experience that features SYLVAINE alternating between heavenly diva mode to raging raspy nastiness and at key moments providing the heaven and hell call and response dualities which give this album a bizarre one-woman beauty and beast effect.

The metal-free opening title track sets the tone of the album which relies more on a stellar layering effect of the production values which allows the dream pop characteristics of the strong melodies to capture your soul while SYLVAINE’s angelic lyrical delivers melt your soul but as the second track “Mono No Aware” suddenly breaks into the more orotund heavy riffing of black metal, the album takes a complete 180 as the two tracks are seemingly from two completely separate artists. The beauty of NOVA is how from this point on the two disparate stylistic approaches slowly begin to integrate.

Overall NOVA is more of an ethereal wave / post-rock album than a black metal one as the bombastic metal moments are reserved for contrast while the dreamy atmospheric lushness dominates the album’s running time of nearly 50 minutes. Whether you consider this music a form of dark neofolk, dream pop, neoclassical darkwave or post-blackgaze dream folk isn’t really relevant. When all is said and done, SYLVAINE has a unique way of throwing all these styles in a blender and making them her own even when recalling the works of Myrkur, Lisa Gerard or other similarly minded artists.

I guess what’s missing from this album is a more dynamic array of vocal styles. True SYLVAINE has mastered those angelic dreamy sequences and even has the chops for those raspy black metal attacks but other than those two comfort zones there isn’t much variation. NOVA is either set to arpeggiated clean guitar mode with swarms of ethereal counterpoints or black metal angst. While the two merge from time to time, the emphasis is on ethereal astral travel beyond the confines of Earthly limitations. While the black metal aspects are a welcome breaking of the mediative spell, they would be more effective if they were left off the leash a bit more as the album begins to start feeling a bit samey towards the end. Any way you slice it, SYLVAINE is a formidable talent who continues to show growth and maturity so keep your eyes on this talent.

adg211288 Coming out of Norway and onto the still relatively recent subset scene of atmospheric black metal, blackgaze, is female artist Sylvaine. The young lady in question isn't new to the music business having already made her debut with Silent Chamber, Noisy Heart (2014), but Wistful (2016) is her first real foray into the metal genre. Aside from the drums which are handled on a session basis by Neige of Alcest, Sylvaine handles everything on the album.

While Sylvaine has certainly gone metal with Wistful, it's not a full conversion of sound as a good chunk of this album is actually made up of clean guitar work, something that is often returned to even during the most black metal styled tracks like Earthbound. A common thing in blackgaze (or modern atmospheric black metal in general), the majority of the vocals are also sung cleanly in Sylvaine's ethereal style, though there are instances where she trades it in for a harsh shriek, Earthbound again being an example of this along with In the Wake of Moments Passed By. Both vocal styles are well done. Calling Wistful both a blackgaze record and a post-rock record would not be wrong to my ears. It does still lean slightly towards the latter though.

The thing with this record is that it only takes the first two tracks, Delusions and Earthbound, to have heard every aspect of Wistful's sound. Delusions is the longest track and features an alternating post-rock sound with a light layer of blackgaze guitar over certain passages and only clean vocals, whereas Earthbound is more full-out blackgaze and only growled vocals (backing aside). Afterwards you can expect to hear variances on those ideas with lighter, even more pure post-rock tracks such as the Wistful title track. It's safe to say that if you're not sold on the album the first two then it won't be for you.

Personally though I find myself somewhat enchanted by what Sylvaine has created. It's just about metal enough to sate that appetite with some really soothing melodies and vocals that I just can't help be won over by, such as those in A Ghost Trapped in Limbo. The songs do tend towards a longer mark though, all being over five minutes and averaging over seven and I do feel like there are times when some tracks outstay their welcome somewhat, especially the post-rock dominant tracks. The album has a total time of 52:45 and that feels about ten minutes too long for the style of music on offer. From the metal perspective it could probably also do with a few more blackgaze passages to feel just that bit more balanced.

Wistful is a good effort from Sylvaine, but it's the kind of album that, while I do enjoy it, I also know isn't going to be a release I'll be turning to very often. Taking several listens to it hasn't allowed the music to open up to me any more than it did initially. It's nice. It's pretty. But is black metal really meant to be either of those things? I'm open-minded enough to accept this for what it is, but at the end of the day I'm not actually sure just what kind of metalhead this is supposed to actually appeal to.