Striborg's discography, spanning over 27 years as of me writing this review, is full of both amazing and baffling records. Sin Nanna's unique brand of depressive black metal, while seeming completely amateurish at first glance, has proven to work wonders when he is doing it on a focused, quality release. Many of the project's records, despite displaying decent ideas, are bogged down by ludicrous vocal work and production. Striborg never really had high production budgets, but A Tragic Journey Towards The Light and the couple releases after still count as some of the worst produced music I think I have ever listened to. None of this is to take away from Sin Nanna and his talents, as his persistence and growth as an artist eventually led to a run of fantastically composed, haunting, and greatly produced projects, with Ghostwoodlands being, in my opinion, the crowning jewel of Striborg.
Ghostwoodlands does not reinvent the wheel for the band, instead it takes great ideas from a couple previous albums and blows them out of the water in terms of quality. A sizeable chunk of the record is taken up by ambient intermission tracks. That, of course, is nothing new for Sin Nanna, as ambient, especially dark and industrial ambient passages have been a major part of Striborg's sound, but never have they occupied so much as 4 out of 7 tracks on any release. These ambient interludes work mostly as collages of textures, put against proper black metal tracks to achieve an incredibly bleak and sorrowful mood that looms largely over this project. Bete Noirs is easily the best album opener out of any Striborg album, as it eases the listener into the world this album creates with bright textures and dissonant string melodies, which occasionally stop to give the track more space. The way it suddenly goes into Wandering The Wilderness Of Eternal Misery is astounding, as the assault of noise comes off unpredictable, despite being built up to for the last 3 minutes.
The interludes maintain the claustrophobic, harrowing nature of the album and are fantastic palate cleansers. Between them, however, we get 3 monstrous tracks, all varying in length and mood. My favourite has to be the previously mentioned second track, Wandering The Wilderness Of Eternal Misery. This track is a sprawling, multi-part piece, whose guitar and drum work is repetitive enough to establish memorable motifs, and varied enough to keep me engaged the entire 19 minutes this track demands. Sin Nanna's vocal performance, instead of opting for an intense, shrieking howls of his earlier work, does the best variation of his signature whisper-screaming, and they add greatly to the bleak, dry atmosphere of the song, not to mention the standout keyboard work. With Animosity I Bequeath Thee is easily the most aggressive, pummelling track in the tracklisting, and while it is a relatively low point, it still contains memorable guitar melodies and a frantic energy not seen on a Striborg album in a long time. The title track blisters with ominous, melodic clean section in the middle, and the way the track eventually builds back up is a creative way to wrap up the album before the incredibly scary and mournful outro track. The entire album functions almost as a single piece of music, divided into parts, each one maintaining its own identity, while also contributing to the central, incredibly atmospheric fundamentals.
While albums like Perceiving The World With Hate and Southwest Passage are fan favourites for obvious reasons such as an increased production budget and shortened tracks, Ghostwoodlands' intricate composition, incredibly unique atmospheres, and genre-bending approach to texture remains unmatched in Sin Nanna's larger body of work. I cannot recommend this album enough, as 15 years after Ghostwoodlands dropped I'm yet to hear a black metal album quite like it. Check this thing out if you haven't, whether you're a black metal purist, or want to get into the genre; this is an incredibly experimental, emotional, masterfully constructed release, which shows the artist Sin Nanna at his highest artistic point, and still stands strong after all this time.
