Last year’s beautifully acoustic one-track EP Glass was already an indicator that Dutch black metal outfit Iskandr had embarked upon a different path. It was not an untrodden one and neither was it completely dissimilar to the previous trail. The guitar play had a bit of the Middle Ages ringing through and also a bit of the Spanish inquisition, the latter reference emerging from the mind especially when while listening to the music you also were looking at the EP cover. In any case, the sounds and the imagery were far away from the established black metal template. Which didn’t bother me at all.
Iskandr’s new full-length album Spiritus Sylvestris, which once again I’m late reviewing, confirms the trajectory sketched above. Fans of the band previous output, including the rebellious last long player Vergezicht, will be listening for tremolo-picked guitars and drumming assaults in vain. Instead of rebellion and menace, the folk doom of Spiritus Sylvestris transmits feelings of disillusionment and feels somewhat post-climactic. A look at the press material that’s accompanying the release confirms that impression. “In an era of irreversible damage to our planet and anthropogenic climate change”, says the band, they aim “to offer funeral dirges for the world that we have already lost.”
The band is actually mostly one person – Omar K., a multi-instrumentalist and active in numerous other projects, Dool and Turia among them. Omar writes the music for Iskandr, sings and plays all the instruments, except for percussion. The cymbals and toms you hear on Spiritus Sylvestris were handled by drummer M. Koops, also involved in multiple other bands.
Featuring sounds akin to those produced on singing glasses, the intro to Spiritus Sylvestris nicely connects to the last EP. After this, the listener is presented with dark, somber soundscapes that call diverse genres to mind, from industrial to darkwave and goth rock. The deep, cold, heavy blows of percussion remind you of Laibach and Dead Can Dance, while the singing seemingly belongs to another time entirely, resembling Gregorian chanting. After an interlude build mostly from guitar, spherical sounds and bird song, the album ends with a psych rock/folk rock piece and on a slightly more optimistic note and somewhat livelier than it began.
Where will the path the band has embarked upon lead them next? That’s really impossible to predict.
Earlier this autumn, I was really excited to read that Dawn Ray’d and Iskandr were going on tour through Europe together. Unfortunately, because of Dawn Ray’d splitting up, the tour has since been cancelled. I hope Iskandr will decide to try their luck on their own someday. I’ll come out to see them, and so will many others, I’m sure.
(7.5/10 Slavica)
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