Review Summary: Putting the "atmosphere" in atmospheric black metal
Iskandr’s home country of the Netherlands is certainly not a place I’ve long thought of as a black metal haven. Nonetheless, I’ve paid more attention to the scene since fellow Dutchmen Fluisteraars greatly impressed with
Bloem last year.
Vergezicht drew me in with an artistically pleasing album cover and the band’s trve-sounding name, and I’m happy to report that the Netherlands has once again delivered on the black metal front.
In terms of subgenre, Iskandr’s efforts here can mainly be categorized as falling into the more atmospheric side of the blackened realm. While Fluisteraars might not be the first comparison to draw if Iskandr didn’t come from the same nation, the bands do share some commonalities in their folkier and more melodic aspects. Overall, though, the tone of Iskandr’s music is more unsettling and sinister, reminding me at times of some of the Icelandic bands like Zhrine and Misthyrming which have risen to prominence in the last decade, even if this album never quite approaches the nihilistic savagery of those acts. The overall results here are a series of long-form black metal tunes tinged with folk and touches of post-rock and post-metal.
The first thing to note about
Vergezicht is that it’s on the long side. As in, over an hour for a collection of six tracks. All songs range from seven to fourteen minutes in duration, so it’s clear that Iskandr weren’t concerned with brevity and instead focused on crafting expansive works. Individual tracks largely blend together, as they share a common DNA in the album’s icy sonic palette and each function as multi-part pieces. Throughout the release, there are folky intros and mid-song interludes, the ringing of chimes and bells, sections with doomy riffs, segments of faster-paced pounding black metal, and a stretch in the midst of “Baken” which sees acoustics and clean vocals very reminiscent of
Bergtatt . “Verbod” also stands as a highlight, a tune which gradually evolves into an epic, with the triumphant riffs which dominate the second half of the song being perhaps the album’s most memorable moment.
There are a number of critiques which can be assessed to
Vergezicht . For one thing, Iskandr is operating here in the hazy middle between mellower heavily folk-influenced stylings on the one side, and much more aggressively metallic contingents on the other, and for some this might come across as demonstrating a lack of identity. In addition, the musical material here doesn’t necessarily break a lot of new ground (even if that’s a criticism that can be marked against many contemporary artists in the scene). Finally, the album’s long runtime doesn’t end up being quite justified. Despite all this, though, Iskandr have been able to create a record which blends its varied components into a convincing whole, one that is both reliably enjoyable to listen to and establishes a coherent atmosphere. It turns out that the album artwork was well-chosen, with the haunting musical bleakness on offer reflecting its predominant muted shades of gray, while the more soothing moments call to mind the potential of the sun bursting out from between the clouds. In the final analysis, Iskandr have succeeded in carving out a rock-solid piece of drearily autumnal black metal which will likely satisfy aficionados of the style.
