Svartkonst - Black Waves
Key Facts
Country: 🇸🇪
Genre: Blackened Death Metal
Release Date: 3rd April 2020
Record Label(s): Trust No One Recordings
Band Members
Rickard Törnqvist - Everything
Svartkonst - Black Waves
Review
Rating (out of 5🤘): 🤘🤘🤘🤘.5
Favourite Track(s): Death Magic, I Am The Void, Black Waves, Stray In The Dark
A furious and brutal one man project hailing from Härnösand, Sweden, that will lay waste to your ear drums with an onslaught of blackened death metal. A raw and uncompromising album that will drag you to the chasms and abysses of hell, chew you up and spit you back out. With all the best elements of black and death metal combined with a doom superglue, Black Waves is a brutal journey into the world of Rickard Törnqvist. I'm a relatively new to Svartkonst, but after this I am fully fledged fan. There is a goliath sized beast hidden behind this album and it shows its teeth at every opportunity throughout.
Musically, this album has everything you need to satiate your blackened death metal hunger. My first thought that came to mind was that it sounds like 1999 Satanica era Behemoth combined with elements of 1984-1987 Bathory, just with more weight and aggression. I can definitely hear a doom influence in there with some of the slow, drudging, dirge like riffs that are the spine of the album. This album has a dark grandeur about it that I really enjoy, it makes me imagine the mountains and dense forests of Scandinavia and what mysterious and evil things await unsuspecting victims that wander into their domain. I think this thought is captured most in Mountains Of Flesh and Ruins Of Splendour, they are uncompromising songs that go from slow doom to relentless death metal in the most divesting way. This is a theme through out the album and these contrasting sections accentuate each other and make the songs so impactful. The use of dynamics is very effective and efficient, the big riffs hit you at exactly the right time every time. The atmosphere that is captured because of this just puts you in the mood to lay waste to everything in your path. The highlight of the album for me has to be the ten minute epic that is Black Waves, with an accosting intro harking back to Bathory's 1988 classic A Fine Day To Die, it is a monster of a song. The album closer is riff after riff with a use of a string arrangement and more acoustic guitar all blended together in a well written and arranged song. Overall, the album in mind is an unsung blackened death metal staple, that has left me speechless for the most part because it has everything that I enjoy in a record like this.
The production quality is amazing for the most part. The only thing that irritates me is the weird phase that the album has, it kind of feels like its going through a tremolo effect in some areas and it can be a bit disorientating. If the was a creative decision to be like that then I completely understand it. The guitar and bass tones are the biggest draw for me, the guitar tones are heavy and chunky in the rhythm section, with lead cutting like a buzz saw through the fuzz wall. The bass has a really great low end thump to it but doesn't dominate the kick. The kick sounds huge and thunderous with an emphasis on the thump instead of the beater click. The snare has a great snap and cuts through really well. The rest of the kit in conjunction sounds tight and well mixed. Overall, the DIY rawness of the project is captured superbly yet is also quite polished in some areas.
If you fancy a some blackened death metal on this rainy and dingy day, get Svartkonst in your ears!
Musically, this album has everything you need to satiate your blackened death metal hunger. My first thought that came to mind was that it sounds like 1999 Satanica era Behemoth combined with elements of 1984-1987 Bathory, just with more weight and aggression. I can definitely hear a doom influence in there with some of the slow, drudging, dirge like riffs that are the spine of the album. This album has a dark grandeur about it that I really enjoy, it makes me imagine the mountains and dense forests of Scandinavia and what mysterious and evil things await unsuspecting victims that wander into their domain. I think this thought is captured most in Mountains Of Flesh and Ruins Of Splendour, they are uncompromising songs that go from slow doom to relentless death metal in the most divesting way. This is a theme through out the album and these contrasting sections accentuate each other and make the songs so impactful. The use of dynamics is very effective and efficient, the big riffs hit you at exactly the right time every time. The atmosphere that is captured because of this just puts you in the mood to lay waste to everything in your path. The highlight of the album for me has to be the ten minute epic that is Black Waves, with an accosting intro harking back to Bathory's 1988 classic A Fine Day To Die, it is a monster of a song. The album closer is riff after riff with a use of a string arrangement and more acoustic guitar all blended together in a well written and arranged song. Overall, the album in mind is an unsung blackened death metal staple, that has left me speechless for the most part because it has everything that I enjoy in a record like this.
The production quality is amazing for the most part. The only thing that irritates me is the weird phase that the album has, it kind of feels like its going through a tremolo effect in some areas and it can be a bit disorientating. If the was a creative decision to be like that then I completely understand it. The guitar and bass tones are the biggest draw for me, the guitar tones are heavy and chunky in the rhythm section, with lead cutting like a buzz saw through the fuzz wall. The bass has a really great low end thump to it but doesn't dominate the kick. The kick sounds huge and thunderous with an emphasis on the thump instead of the beater click. The snare has a great snap and cuts through really well. The rest of the kit in conjunction sounds tight and well mixed. Overall, the DIY rawness of the project is captured superbly yet is also quite polished in some areas.
If you fancy a some blackened death metal on this rainy and dingy day, get Svartkonst in your ears!
Svartkonst - Black Waves
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