Review Summary: Are you ready to get Rim'd?
“Fun” is not a descriptor often used to describe black metal or black metal-adjacent genres. Outside of black n’ roll or the drunken bro aesthetic of blackened thrash, purveyors of Satan’s music tend to remain serious, somber, or both; a hearkening back to the troubled beginnings of the genre, where self-awareness and lightheartedness seemed to be foreign concepts. An inkling of this idea of “fun” black metal began to creep in with Immortal (Abbath has certainly taken this idea and run with it to great success), but on the whole, few black metal bands fully embrace the idea of making an album, well, fun.
With
Expedition: Darkness, Rimfrost not only embrace this idea, they give it a big ol’ wet kiss on the lips. To be fair, calling this a black metal album is certainly a stretch: aside from a few black metal guitar licks, blast beats, and corpse paint, Rimfrost tend to focus on hooks and melody found more often in New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) or Gothenburg-style melodic death metal.
Epedition: Darkness is like going into a good sushi restaurant, only to discover they make one of the best burgers you’ve ever had in your life.
Album opener “Rising of a Black Dawn” is little more than an acoustic rendering of the riff on the proper first track, “Damned Jaws”. Instead of feeling wasted, the flow of these tracks calls to mind memories of
Jester Race or
Colony era In Flames, who used the same trick well. “Damned Jaws” is an energetic opener full of galloping triplets and melodic death metal riffs, but on its own doesn’t quite prepare you for what’s to come.
Only when followed up by the rockin’ “Sam-Hain” does the picture start to come together. This is the first instance of pure fun on the album: you’ll be headbanging and singing along to the NWOBHM stylings and hooks presented throughout, helped in no small part by Hravn’s well enunciated black metal growls. These two tracks set up
Expedition: Darkness perfectly, laying the groundwork for the album to come while still leaving plenty of room for surprises.
Difficult as it may be to exercise restraint and refrain from an in-depth track-by-track review for an album of this nature, there are some very clear highlights. The first taste of pure black metal comes with the title track, which starts with a familiar, dissonant black metal lick that, instead of trudging through the snow, morphs unexpectedly into something much more beautiful, haunting and melodic before taking off into mid-paced melodic thrash territory. “Vorhees” executes abrupt tempo changes with finesse and ease, leaving you to wonder just how in the hell Rimfrost is able to pull this off. “Natten” is a slower, plodding track that uses gang vocals to great effect, and closer “At the Blessing of the Damn” features a dance-y drum beat that, instead of being cheesy, accentuates the riffing perfectly.
The pitfalls of the album often come down to personal taste. The most glaring one is that this is definitively NOT melodic black metal as we know it. Going in with the expectation of a pure melodic black metal album will either sour the experience or elicit joyful surprise depending on the listener. While used sparingly, the 80’s horror synths could be offputting to some, and not all of the abrupt transitions work nearly as well as on “Vorhees”.
Minor quibbles aside,
Expedition: Darkness is a well-crafted and ludicrously catchy melodic metal album that pulls from unexpected places to create a distinct sound. While unlikely to upheave the black metal world, fans of melodic death metal and black metal, as well as potentially those looking to slowly dip their toes into extreme metal, owe it to themselves to listen to this album.
Let the fun begin.
