IOTUNN — Access All Worlds (review)

Album · 2021 · Progressive Metal

4/5 · 2021-03-12
lukretion

My 2021 in prog metal has been quite satisfactory for now, with plenty of strong albums already (Soen, Transatlantic, Therion) and only very few disappointments (Steven Wilson). What the year has been lacking so far, though, is the surprise factor – a new band that comes out of nowhere and manages to blow me away. Enter Iotunn, a Danish quintet hailing from Copenhagen who have just released their debut album, Access All Worlds, via Metal Blade Records. It is a striking debut, with plenty of highlights, that just keeps drawing the listener back for more and that, come December, I am sure will pop up in many metalfans’ end-of-year lists.

Iotunn play a special brand of melodic death metal, very epic in an unmistakably Nordic way, and with distinctive progressive undercurrents. The guitar work of brothers Jens and Jesper Gräs is impeccable and give us a massive dose of highly headbangable riffs, epic classic heavy metal leads, and shimmering solos, in the best tradition of the Scandinavian melodic death scene. The furious but extremely varied and dynamic drumming of Bjørn Wind Andersen and the subtle melodic interjections of bassist Eskil Rask add to the mix to create a mighty texture of sound that envelopes the listener from the very first notes of the album and transports her to a different world. This impressive musical background is topped off by the vocal histrionics of singer Jón Aldará. I am not hugely familiar with Aldará’s performance in his other bands (Barren Earth, Hamferð), but his vocal work on Access All Worlds simply floored me. He is an incredible talent. His growls are fierce, dark and deep but without sacrificing clarity of enunciation, which is a quality that reminds me of the great Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity). Aldará’s cleans are equally amazing. So full of epicness and pathos, they inject a marked Nordic vibe into the music, bringing to mind even bands like Borknagar and Enslaved. Aldará also uses a third vocal style, a sort of shouted clean singing that falls halfway between his growling and his cleans. His all-encompassing and passionate performance elevates the albums to a whole new level and is certainly one of the main highlights of the record.

The eclectic influences that the five musicians bring to the table (from melodic death, to black metal, to standard heavy metal, to space metal) are expertly mixed to ensure that Access All Worlds stays fresh and retains the listener’s attention throughout its nearly 62 minutes of duration. It is a remarkable feat because Access All Worlds is not a lightweight album and requires a fair amount of time investment on the part of the listener, as one can infer from the fact six of its seven tracks clock above 6 minutes. The band’s progressive streak means that a lot of things happen in those 6+ minutes. These are songs that do not like to rest for too long on the same theme or melody, but keep evolving into new parts, with several tempo changes and a good dose of instrumental passages. The song fluidity and complexity is never overburdening, although there are a few times where I did wish that the band indulged in slightly more streamlined structures, allowing the melodies to sink in more easily.

Another aspect of the album that I also regret somewhat is its slightly unbalanced tracklist: although the quality of the music is high throughout the record, there is a sensible step-up in the second half of the album. From “Waves Below” onwards, the record keeps getting better and better, reaching an intense climax on album closer “Safe Across the Endless Night”. This track is incredible: it twists and turns across nearly 14 minutes and keeps surprising the listener with new ideas that one did not necessarily see coming. This unpredictability is something that makes this song stand out (together with “Waves Below” and the more compact “The Weaver System”) relative to other tracks, which are sometimes a tad too formulaic.

Ultimately, though, these are only minor quibbles. Access All Worlds is a truly impressive debut album that should appeal to anyone with a liking for extreme progressive metal. Although the roots of the album lie in the Scandinavian melodic death tradition, by mixing in a lot of different influences Iotunn manage to forge a distinct individual sound, which is rather impressive for a debut album. If the band will dare to push the boundaries of their music just a little bit further, giving the listener fewer reference points and throwing more curveballs at them, I cannot imagine how Iotunn will fail to become a leading force in the extreme prog metal universe. Highly recommended!

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]