GAAHLS WYRD — The Humming Mountain (review)

GAAHLS WYRD — The Humming Mountain album cover

EP · 2021 · Black Metal

3/5 · 2021-11-04
lukretion

With his enigmatic persona and a past in bands like Gorgoroth and Wardruna, Kristian Eivind Espedal (aka Gaahl) needs little introduction in this forum. His most recent musical project, Gaahl’s WYRD has been operative for about five years, during which the band released a live album, a studio record (2019’s GastiR - Ghosts Invited), and now a new EP, The Humming Mountain, scheduled for release via Season of Mist on November 5th. The EP follows closely in the footsteps of Gaahl’s WYRD previous album GastiR, also considering that three of its five tracks are rearranged versions of songs that were written for GastiR but eventually left out because they not fully fitting its conceptual theme. Yet, The Humming Mountain also shows progression and growth, as the music moves further away from the harsh and extreme metal GastiR to embrace mellower and more cinematic sonic territories.

The Humming Mountain cleverly combines three different musical worlds. The starting point is contemporary black/extreme metal, with plenty of icy guitar riffs, menacing subdued growls, and furious drums that are kept low and rough in the mix. There are also traces of more progressive inclinations, especially in the angular, uncomfortable riffage and fluid structure of “The Dwell”, which brings to mind some of the recent work by extreme prog metal icon Ihsahn. This sonic ferocity is ingeniously mitigated by swathes of dark post-metal melancholy, with mellow, long-winding melodies that are repeated hypnotically with varying degrees of intensity to build immersive walls of sounds, in the vein of bands like Alcest or Sólstafir. While the combination of black/extreme metal aggression and post-rock mellowness was also at the heart of Gaahl’s WYRD debut album, the melodic component is further accentuated on The Humming Mountain, also thanks to the beautiful use of layered clean vocals that find much more space on the new EP compared to the 2019’s LP. Moreover, The Humming Mountain also brings in a third influence that wasn’t so much present on the debut LP: dark folk. This influence is particularly marked on the EP opening track “The Seed”, a superb, 9-minute tour-de-force that sounds like something Hexvessel could have written, but rawer, darker, and more desperate.

These different musical palettes are used skilfully in different dosage from song to song, to create a beautiful sonic arc across the five tracks of the album. Listening to The Humming Mountain feels like watching a bubble of sinister darkness slowly take form, grow and explode. The album starts with the low-key, largely acoustic “The Seed”, before picking up in intensity with the gorgeous post-rock of the title track, and reaches its peak on “The Dwell”, which is by and large the most frenzied and ferocious song of the EP. The remaining two songs perfectly mirror the opening duo, with “Awakening Remains” inhabiting similar musical territories as the title-track while retaining some of the black ferocity of “The Dwell”, and “The Sleep” closing the EP on a mellow acoustic note.

The variation in sonic intensity, moods and atmosphere is great because it keeps things fresh and engaging from start to finish. This, and the short duration of the EP (about 30 minutes), are key to the success of the album, especially because The Humming Mountain is a record that lives off subtle melodies and delicate atmospheres rather than catchy hooks and attention-grabbing moments. If it were lengthier, or more homogeneous, the risk of falling flat would have been real. In this format, however, it works a charm and makes for an immersive but not overburdening listening experience.

In sum, if you liked Gaahl’s WYRD debut, you’ll probably find lots to like on the new EP as well, as the two records follow parallel – yet subtly different – musical courses. If instead the debut LP had piqued your interest but not fully convinced you – like it has been for me -, The Humming Mountain is a great opportunity to re-evaluate Gaahl’s musical manifesto. I found much more to like on the new EP, which is more experimental, adventurous and diverse than the debut album, and all the better for it. Either way, I’d recommend that you give The Humming Mountain a chance and immerse yourself in the subtle dark charms of its hums.

[Originally written for The Metal Observer - www.metal-observer.com]