Comprising members of Lifelover and Kall Sweden’s Hypothermia has an extensive discography since their inception in 2001, which has seen the band always record everything they do live. Initially the band was more of a purist black metal style but over the years their music has evolved into something far more intelligent and artistic culminating in this release with an appropriate title which translates as black art I believe. Avant-garde black metal is nothing new as the scene was formed in the 90s with bands like Arcturus, Dødheimsgard, Ulver etc. Classifying this as post black metal is appropriate as the five tunes entwine elegant guitar work that blends with the very dark and pitch black atmosphere this conjures up when listening to it. Added to the opus is some violin work as well which reinforces the dirgeful cheerlessness that the album brushes you with.
The opening track, “Invokation”, is nearly nine minutes of sonic despair yet it passes by so quickly and leads into the wondrous title track. The lugubrious guitar work is what makes the work of latter day Hypothermia music so mesmerizing, like Alcest, Agalloch and a whole host of shoe gaze like exponents the song taps coldly on your heartstrings, encasing them in crystalline sombreness even when the guitar aggression is multiplied this release is saturated in embittered grief. The pace rarely lifts outside a doom like procession but still manages to create complex webs of sonic fibres as parts remind of bands like Cult Of Luna on their more tranquil moments. The bands previous effort was one single composition spanning 68 minutes released in 2010 and it could have been possible to render this as one tune as well. “Regnvals” is a shorter song compared to the others but no less intriguing and engrossing with its pace appropriately creating a funereal ethos that really is transfixing and massively enhanced by the increasing guitar distortion that crescendos before exhaling back to the more subtle playing.
Closing this is “Vy” which fades in gently with a post rock like melody before unleashing a glacially wintry riff that seems to mummify you in blackened ice. Half way through and the asphyxiating dispiritedness is lifted slightly for the post rock guitar work to filter through again as light relief only for it to be pushed back by more suffocating bleakness. As morose and gloomy as this album is it offers a sonic catharsis that is breathtakingly beautiful.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
http://hypothermia.trollkatt.com/index.html
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