Sun Worship
Elder Giants

Release Date: 2014 | Tracklist

It’s almost hard to start a review about American black metal and not mention forefathers Weakling and torch-bearers Wolves in the Throne Room/ Panopticon who are arguably the most well respected and most recognized influencers in the American realm of black metal. Largely overlooked until about 15 years ago, the black metal scene has now exploded – the Cascadian black metal scene is nothing to shake a stick at either – and finds itself returning to the near homeland from where it began. For years, the Norwegian black metal circuit was all but a few passing prog/ dark metal/ punk crust bands that had sucked the glory days dry and moved on to bigger and more grandeur projects. In a way, it’s funny how black metal has crossed the Atlantic not once but twice now and Germany’s Sun Worship on their debut find themselves influenced by the sprawling atmospheric composures done to perfection by any of the above mentioned American bands.

Opening track 'We Sleep’ gets right down to business and lets loose a barrage of frosty-tinged, blitzkrieging tremolo riffs that melt together and morph into abyssal darkness as the nearly 13 minute track unfolds. At first the WitTR comparisons began to creep in and I almost skipped to the next track when all of a sudden the band opens up its assault with a series of plodding, dynamic riffs that would have Fenriz thinking, “I’m going to use those riffs on the next Darkthrone album”. The warp blasting continues after this bridge but what grabbed me the most was their sense of brutality and old-school punk/crust vibe that layers itself beneath the compositions. The contrasting nature of that old school punk/ crust and sheer atmospheric tremolo riffing is done to perfection and pulls this beast out of the water, not allowing the vibe to become lost in a derivative nature of any sort. The black metal just continues to become more refreshing as the next two tracks - ‘The Absolute is Becoming’ and the epic journey through a darkened forest ‘Elder Giants’ – cement their mighty deep runs of atmospheric black metal and underlays it with the origin roots from places where black metal once first prospered. Finally, the last track ‘Transneptunian (Infinite Gaze)’ makes most ambient Burzum tracks sound like amateur ***. The bands take on power-electronics and ambient keys is foreboding and mesmerizing, drowning the listener in a haze of powerful hypnotic lust. The production/ mix on this monster also helps hold it high above the pact in regards to the placement of everything - including the glass-shard raspy vocals - into a perfect order of importance and giving the guitars that extra oomph and the percussion that extra crispness.

It’s also important to note that while Sun Worship may sound like their American counterparts, they sound passionate about what they do which I feel is mostly missing these days from the black metal scene. All in all, a cornerstone album of where atmospheric black metal has gone and where it may carry onto next.

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3.8 excellent

Rank: #0 for 2014