Rating: 3/5
In a genre of stylistic sameness and poor gender diversity, one-woman black metal outfit Myrkur is a welcome breath of fresh air. Danish muse Amalie Bruun has emerged at long last with M, her debut LP as Myrkur. After a promising EP last year, Myrkur’s first full-length album has been hotly anticipated by the black-metal community. Press shots of Bruun standing in dark Scandinavian woods and posing with direwolves only added to the sense of gothic mystery surrounding M. Released on the legendary Relapse Records and featuring creative input from members of Ulver and Mayhem, M certainly has some reputable names associated with it.
Does M live up to its self-imposed hype? The answer is a tentative yes. M is a wonderfully atmospheric eleven-song suite with plenty of room for improvement. As foretold by gloomy lead single “Hævnen” (reviewed in Issue 20 of Critic this year), Myrkur leaps between a frostbitten, aggressive brand of black metal and a sweeping folk-meets-classical grandeur straight from the Skyrim soundtrack. I enjoy both sides of Myrkur’s sound, as conventional as the harsh stuff is or as lovably lame as the Middle Earth segments are. What needs tweaking, however, is the ugly thrash-metal guitar tone of the former, and the often jarring transitions to the latter. One moment you’re being serenaded by fiddling valkyries, and the next a low-resolution ice demon is screaming in your ear. Myrkur often doesn’t traverse these styles as smoothly as she should. The seams of M are a little glaring as a result.
Forgiving some ramshackle structuring and the overall lack of polish, there are some moments of real beauty to be enjoyed on M. Opener “Skøgen Skulle Dø” pinches the melancholic melody from Davy Jones’ locket in the Pirates of the Caribbean films for a wonderful journey through the Scandinavian wilderness, juxtaposing the Enya shtick with scabrous metal sequences more convincingly than anywhere else on the album. “Hævnen” is still a sepulchral treat, particularly in its lavish classical outro. “Norn” closes the album with gorgeous lilac ripples of piano, capturing that velveteen sadness Kate Bush was basking in on Hounds of Love. It is on this solemn and achingly beautiful note that Myrkur leaves us. M might not have completely satisfied me, but it has left me optimistic for Myrkur’s future.
