Time Signature
Safe passage...
Genre: instrumental black/post-metal
Enter Sannhet, a Brooklyn-based instrumental trio whose sphere of experimentation encompasses the darker aspects of artistic expression. Their debut Known Floods thus takes the listener on a journey through some dark and pretty intense music.
A major aesthetic ingredient comes from black metal, as Sannhet (I suppose their Norwegian name, which means 'truth' kind of gives away their inclination towards black metal) makes use of the same kind of tense harmonies, tremolo-picking amd blastbeats heard in black metal. But, Sannhet's music is much more than just black metal. Taking a post-metal/post-hardcore approach, the New Yorkers imbue their music with lots of atmosphere, introvertness, and experimentalism as well as a slight avant-garde edge. Moreover, the sound itself, with a fat bottom provided by a distorted bass, has more of a sludge metal feel to it, which is in both contrast and congruence with the ambient and soundscap-y intermissions that pop up throughout the album.
Not the most melodic of music, and lacking catchy vocal hooks (being instrumental music), the forte of this album is not catchiness or memorability, but rather atmosphere and expression of dark emotionality, and there is indeed plenty of that. If you like experimental, introvert post-metal, then you might want to give this one a listen.
(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)
