Danish quartet Solbrud are not the Four Horses of the Apocalypse. However, IIII certainly sounds like it was composed as a soundtrack to it.
A conspicuous number for the band, four is omnipresent in this release: four members, four vinyl sides, fourth full length, in the two thousand and twenty fourth year. Spooky. I rather expected fourteen or even twenty-four teensy tracks, instead of the current eleven, but I’ll let that one slide.
The story goes like this: the band decided to do something different for their fourth album – not necessarily sound wise but in composition. (The following is this is a dramatised version of events I have no direct knowledge of). Each member worked tirelessly, day and night, to compose one side of this colossal double LP, a sort of four seasons of a show soon to be renewed for a fifth, the four elements, or the four seasons in general (though not the hotel chain), and thus, Solbrud’s IIII came about, a bit like the Powerpuff Girls’s happy lab accident, but premeditated and in a foursome.
It is a little odd, though. Not the composing approach, but the lack of credits pointing out to who composed what. It’s difficult to even find what the LP side separations are unless you check Discogs. You can sort of hear those separations, but in my opinion, the transitions are not distinctive enough. Moreover, since 11 tracks are shared between the four members, it means that some of them composed fewer than four – and some more. I won’t try to guess who composed what, but it would have been helpful to have some of this information noted.
Part 1
The first track, Hvile, a nearly 18-minute belter mixes atmospheric post black metal with second wave black metal. It sounds very very Wolves In The Throne Room-y. The second, Tåge, a much breezier 6-minute number, proceeds in much the same way, but with more of an emphasis on atmospheric post black metal. Here, I cannot help myself but note how second wave black metal the vocals sound. Perhaps that’s the entirety of the second wave influences I heard in the first one, perhaps, not.
Part 2
Part 2 is formed of a four-track arc titled Når solen brydes. The first two parts present a sequence on the grittier side of the coin, with the second one concluding with a triumphant atmospheric arc that blends back into the fast second wave inspired composition. The third one is rather uneventful and slow, but contains some lovely guitar passages, which makes me think it was composed by the lead guitarist Adrian Dietz. The last track of the arc is fully instrumental, and serves more as an interlude/outro than anything else.
Part 3
Part 3 is its own thing from the beginning. First track Ædelråd is a lot more balanced than any of the six preceding it, both compositionally and melodically, and sets the mood in a Bergtatt-era Ulver style, but with an almost Xasthur level of tonal monotony. There is also a very Dunkelheit-esque transition circa 6:30 minutes in. This is very much the peak of the album for me – or indeed, its beginning. The guitar work is sublime and so is the grandiose finale, which I did not anticipate, followed by a brief introspective acoustic outro. The second, Sjæleskrig is another instrumental track, which starts really slow, but then develops into a sludgy wall of sound, which is more than welcome in IIII. The guitar work is once again beautiful, with a resonator guitar tinge to it.
Part 4
Part 4 returns to the second wave influences with En ild som tusind sole – a classic Darkthrone number with strong WITTR influences and a very grandiose culmination. It’s quite Transylvanian Hunger but make it 2024. The composition is just right and its melodiousness cannot be overlooked. The following, Aske, slows down the tempo and increases the grit to produce a more dsbm-like sound, which I really like. It weirdly reminds me of Silencer meets A Year Of No Light, with a sprinkle of Alda. An intense, slow wall of sound. The drumming and the vocals are absolute perfection, and the general composition of the track is beautiful and a lot better constructed than many of the previous tracks. The album concludes with Postludium – a groovy shoegaze-y outro that sounds perpetually escalating, with no end in sight, seemingly purporting to a snowy whirlwind.
Conclusion
I’m in two minds about this album. I like parts of it a lot (the third and the fourth). I cannot care less for others (second). Others are just fine (first). I don’t necessarily think that the whole is disconnected from its parts, but I also don’t think that the parts really combine well into a viable whole. Both sides of an antithesis could be true at once, and therein, at their intersection lies IIII. Had parts 3 and 4 been the entirety of the album, I’d have liked it a lot more. But hey ho, I can always skip parts 1 and 2, so I’m not too miffed overall.
IIII is Solbrud’s first album with their new vocalist David Hernan, Afsky’s Ole Pedersen Luk being the original vocalist. While the two’s voices and styles are remarkably similar, the former has a more second wave tinge to his shrieks, which serves Solbrud – and IIII – really well. Had the vocals been more third wave, I think this album would have been much less interesting, and garnered much less discourse.
Aside from that, I just don’t think this album is very interesting musically. The approach to its composition isn’t unheard of but also isn’t all that common. It would be intriguing to see where Solbrud will take this approach in their following releases. There’s certainly room for improvement, but, in my opinion, members’ individual strengths and creativity would be best utilised in a more centralised manner, despite that being distinctly uncool.
(6.5/10 The Flâneur)
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