Bombarded by cosmic rays, Sunken scour the farthest corners of Earth to bring the best that atmospheric black metal has to offer.
The days of Arescet are long gone, with the band having more than a few years ago transformed into what we see and hear before us today: Sunken. A nautical leviathan of black metal. It has been quite the wait since the band's demo debut The Crackling of Embers, but the wait has been well worth it.
The band has changed quite a bit since The Crackling of Embers, firstly by going through a few lineup changes. They've expunged their funeralesque doom metal influences and droning heaviness in favour of a more focused approach to atmospheric black metal. Departure, as such, seems a fitting title. By now they're ready to send powerful chills down the spine with music that flows, swells, recedes and crests like the waving movements of a vast ocean.
The band has changed quite a bit since The Crackling of Embers, firstly by going through a few lineup changes. They've expunged their funeralesque doom metal influences and droning heaviness in favour of a more focused approach to atmospheric black metal. Departure, as such, seems a fitting title. By now they're ready to send powerful chills down the spine with music that flows, swells, recedes and crests like the waving movements of a vast ocean.
"Departure is incredibly multifaceted, as it should be,"
Together with Solbrud's Vemod, this is undoubtedly one of the more thrilling black metal albums to come out of Denmark in 2017, and an album debut that mirrors the surprisingly high level of quality that made bands like Ash Borer and Wolves in the Throne Room genre stables. Departure is incredibly multifaceted, as it should be, and their songwriting reaches far beyond most contemporaries.
Sunken manages to be both broodingly melancholic and surprising with high-flying passages that cut like rivers through the landscape. The broadening expanses of distortion that make up the vast backdrop of the album is supplemented - and elevated - by minute details that give birth to subtle progressions, which, as they pass along, result in an exceptionally thorough album and listening experience. There isn't much in the way of daring variations or shifts in mood or tempo, but neither would you want Sunken to stray too far from the path that they're carving with such great proficiency.
Sunken manages to be both broodingly melancholic and surprising with high-flying passages that cut like rivers through the landscape. The broadening expanses of distortion that make up the vast backdrop of the album is supplemented - and elevated - by minute details that give birth to subtle progressions, which, as they pass along, result in an exceptionally thorough album and listening experience. There isn't much in the way of daring variations or shifts in mood or tempo, but neither would you want Sunken to stray too far from the path that they're carving with such great proficiency.
9/10
Released in 2017 by Nordavind Records
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