mol :"JORD"

This album came out in April and almost breezed by under the radar which would ave been a damn shame. They hammer into their songs with a meaner sneer than the bulk of the so called "black gaze' bands . Sure they are not far removed from Deafheaven sonically. There is kind of a catchy slant to the riff of "Prenumbra". Obviously King Diamond hails from Denmark so I am aware metal can come from the region, but it's not somewhere that strikes me as being as aggressive as what these guys delve into. The songs are not in your face 100 percent of the time, but when they are they ramp up the evil to 11. The post-rock elements are very fluid and more post-rock than shoe-gaze, as they don't work off of droning. The vocals are tortured in a squealing almost dsbm manner. Dynamics are these guys forte and the guitar is also very deft at creating trickling melodies/

The go after "Vakuum" with an almost punk like energy. One thing this band excels at is blending the light lilted passages with and underlying nastiness. Sometimes this the set against an almost thrash charged groove. "Lambda" ebbs back down to their lighter place. This is the first song where I can heard the shoe gaze part that might earn them the black gaze title. The drone on this for the first half of the song allowing the intensity to slowly swell, but refrain from cashing it in. "Ligament" has more of a death metal pound. It evolves into something with more of a lacerating blast set against the rather sweeping guitar melodies.One of the album's most straight forward songs and even then it twists and turns more than the average verse chorus ditty. It also features clean vocals that come in during the last minute of the song.

Things do begin to take on a more uniform sound as they are firmly settled into what they do to the point that I can't tell "Virga" apart from the other songs.They are redeemed from this by the powerfully driving chug of the title track. There is one bridge that sounds like the Police jamming with Alcest. Overall it's a great listen I'll give it a 9 as it due to the moment where you get lost and think it all sounds the same, typically however most of the songs are strong and they take what could be a tired bandwagon and freshen it up.