This Gift is a Curse : "Heir"

 

This Swedish band plays a confrontational style of black metal that carries hard-core roots in its aggression. The first track does not just blast at you but brings various influences. I like how they are layered with the spoken female vocals when things break down by the end of the song. "No Sun, Nor Moon" finds the more hard-core side of the band surfacing on the chorus, though it blasts along in the vein of most black metal bands these days. I like the darker creep to "Void Bringer" though the vocals are more chaotic and work less with what is going on. 

"Death Maker" is the typical blasting you expect from black metal though a tad more feral in its frenzied snarl. "Seers of No Light" also falls along the more wrathful slant of black metal, and is not as sonically interesting as the more experimental and ambient take they embark on with "Cosmic Voice" even though it does work off more of a drone, and might not fall into the hooky bounds of songwriting, it shows there is a time and place for everything, and this type of willingness to play with the formula and think out of the box is something many of the other songs could benefit from as well. Fans of just black metal might find this to be their least favorite track if they only listen to black metal for their brains to become battered by blast beats. 

"Vow Sayer" falls closer to the expected bound of black metal, with some eerie melodies that create ambiance behind the more in-your-face onslaught in the front of the mix. In some ways, it's closer to the chaos of a band like Deathspell Omega. There is a darker atmosphere to the song "Old Space" that throbs with a darkness that I find more pleasing, along with a whispered vocal that is more brooding. All of these things are more pleasing. This swells into a more sludge-like mood, but is the first moment in this album that feels like this. The last song finds the vocal back in a crazed snarl that stirs things into a more chaotic vision of black metal. I'll give this album a 9, it's dark enough black metal that it works for me, though due to the unhinged vocal approach which is not as purposeful as what I normally look for I'm not sure how much I will actually listen to it, but there is no denying the success of what they created here.Out March 7th on Season of Mist.  

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