Artist: DHG/Dødheimsgard
Country: Norway
Label: Peaceville Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2023
That Dødheimsgard has been pushing the boundaries of Black Metal has been clear from the earliest works. Perhaps that’s why the influence of their classic albums ‘Kronet Til Konge’ and ‘Monumental Possession’ on the Black Metal scene to this day appears overlooked. My earliest memory of Dødheimsgard is a show in early 1999, or rather, a show reduced to a few songs. Much earlier than planned the band left the stage, misunderstood by large parts of the crowd for their off the beaten path appearance and approach to Black Metal. At that time the band were on the verge of releasing ‘666 International’, a divisive album that took the marginally present electronic escapades of the preceding ‘Satanic Art’ EP to new extremities, leading to a record on a path far away to the outskirts of Black Metal. It was a record that few were ready for at the time, but the band fronted by mastermind Vicotnik continued stoically on their path of experimentation. To indicate their morphing identity the band started operating as DHG (which later changed to DHG/Dødheimsgard), releasing the intense and mechanical ‘Supervillain Outcast’ 8 years later. ‘A Umbra Omega’ followed yet another 8 years later, and, you guessed it, 8 years have passed since, as the band unveils their latest opus, ‘Black Medium Current’.
‘A Umbra Omega’ was a colossal and immersive album with songs exclusively clocking in at over 11 minutes (casually ignoring the length of the intro here). The mechanical and electronic tone of the preceding records was much reduced, giving way to music that once again led to different territories, deeply progressive with rich bass play. The music was dissonant, at times sterile and clinical but with an entrancing sense of adventure, escalation and harmony. The intense Black Metal was far from gone but more compartmentalized compared to the preceding records, a newfound balance which in the end elevated the music to unprecedented territories. Not surprisingly, the album received high praise, and it felt as if the years of experimentation had led to DHG/Dødheimsgard finding a new version of themselves. This appears to be confirmed by ‘Black Medium Current’, which in a lot of ways is similar to the predecessor. But at the same time, the new album is by no means a carbon copy.
To describe what can be found on ‘Black Medium Current’, I would like to spend some time on album opener and highlight ‘Et Smelter’. It starts off with a soothing acoustic intro that slowly swells into a more grandiose form of sorrow that explodes into melancholic ferocity, carried by a deceptively simple yet highly memorable melody. Vicotnik’s raspy shrieks backed up with clean vocals slowly develop into background choirs that are juxtaposed to the raging drums and guitars, somewhat harkening back to the early days of Ulver and Borknagar. An unsettling clean riff with harsh recitation, clean background chanting and progressive bass leads to the next ominous passage that flows into a pitchdarksectionpart with fast tremolo picking and haunting keyboards. The more electronic elements are reserved for last but are beautifully balancing the guitar solo in a Pink Floyd like manner. Simply said, a masterpiece of a song, and a great example to start dissecting the similarities and differences between the newest album and ‘A Umbra Omega’.
As one of the two lengthiest songs on the album, ‘Et Smelter’ has a comparable length to the immense tracks on the preceding record. They have the progressive rich bass sound, the intense Black Metal, the adventurous cleaner sections and electronic escalations in common. But while ‘A Umbra Omega’ was a more impenetrable album, more clinical and dissonant, lengthier and more extreme in variation, ‘Black Medium Current’ feels like a more accessible album. By no means easy to unravel and in every way a challenging listen, it does feel a lot more comfortable instantly, an album that doesn’t hide its redeeming qualities yet will still only slowly unfold its most intimate details and secrets as time goes by. It feels more extreme in its fierceness, and darker in its emotions, yet more organically flowing and less isolated.
For the sake of brevity, I will briefly highlight a few more tracks and leave the rest for the listener to explore. The mesmerizing qualities of ‘Interstellar Nexus’ are memorable, but the electronic escalation that turns into an almost classic Black Metal section towards the end is particularly thought-provoking. The Prog Rock intro of ‘It Does Not Follow’ is a beautiful misleading start to a song that later develops into intense fury strewn with gorgeous riffs and melodies that have a deep influence of classical music embedded into them. ‘Halow’ not only has a beautifully developing melody midway, the ending with keyboards and chanting is downright mesmerizing. And while the colossal and more restrained ‘Abyss Perihelion Transit’ has some of the most memorable vocal lines we’ve heard from the band so far, ‘Requiem Aeternum’ ends the album in an apex of bleakness and sorrow.
On one of the many listens to dive into the work of the band, I came to quite a striking realization. When shuffle decided that a song off ‘Black Medium Current’ should be followed by ‘When Heavens End’ off ‘Kronet Til Konge’ it dawned on me that the sick and diverse vocals, frivolous bass and melancholic harmonies between the songs were surprisingly comparable. This makes it even more evident that, although using much more diverse and out of the box means than when the band started so many decades ago, after all these years ‘Black Medium Current’ is still true to the core of Vicotnik’s vision of the band.
Thus, in true DHG/Dødheimsgard fashion, the band never stopped to refine their formula. While ‘A Umbra Omega’ felt like a culmination of their journey, on ‘Black Medium Current’ the band has taken that a new step further. I will leave the judgement of which is the better album to the individual listener: these records are simply different. What I am willing to state however is that ‘Black medium Current’ is a more accessible initial listen to those willing to open their mind to avant-garde Black metal. At times fierce, deeply experimental yet always immensely beautiful, it displays the genius of the band and the combination of the paths taken over the years that lead to this magnificent album. And if you don’t really like experimentation, that’s okay. Just do yourself a favor and revisit ‘Kronet Til Konge’ and ‘Monumental Possession’, because if one thing is consistent in the work of DHG/Dødheimsgard, it is that the band remains both visionary and vastly underrated.
