Review Summary: The wilderness has a name, and it is Austin Lunn
Panopticon is a curious creature in the world of black metal. Despite having all of the normal hallmarks (tremolo picking, raspy vocals, blast beats, etc), the music has a noticeably more contemplative and peaceful feel to it. Not in the Deafheaven "let's throw glitter on everything" sense, but a distinctly meditative atmosphere permeates all of Austin Lunn's work that makes the music both exhilarating and oddly relaxing. Kentucky was a hell of a debut and Roads to the North cemented Panopticon as a force to be reckoned with, and now Austin has finally taken that big leap and gone for the double album.
The Scars of Man... is a behemoth of a release, clocking in at a full two hours over the course of eighteen tracks. If you pull it up on some services like Spotify it'll show up as two separate albums. Truthfully, splitting it in half makes sense, because the album is structured as two halves. To wit, the opening and closing tracks on each have a strong intro/outro vibe to them, despite the watery nature sounds on Part 1's "Snow Burdened Branches" segueing directly into Part 2's "The Moss Beneath the Snow." This isn't like they took a 2 hour album and cut it in half for commercial's sake, no Dopesmoker into Jerusalem here. It really is a work presented in two acts.
Oh yeah, and let's not forget that Part 2, unlike Part 1, is barely black metal. Actually, scratch that, it's not black metal. Aside from the latter half of "At the Foot of the Mountain" there's nothing resembling metal anywhere on part 2. It's all of Austin's dark Americana that's been woven into Panopticon's previous albums distilled and given its own playground to really stretch its legs out. This is often a bit of a dangerous endeavor, because the ability to incorporate influences from a non-metal genre into one's music is a wildly different beast than writing for it entirely. Lunn proves his mettle (see what I did there?) though, from the twangy bounce of "The Wandering Ghost" to the dirge of "Beast Rider" that wouldn't feel out of place on a latter-day Johnny Cash Album, it's really incredible just how none of Part 2's tracks give the feel of a metal band trying to be something they usually aren't.
Part 1 is much less of a departure, but no less of a strong output. Everything that's been so lauded of Panopticon is still here. He manages to create melodies with his rapid-fire guitar picking, the vocals have a primitive quality that's more of a wild animal in a cave than someone slitting their wrists or setting a church on fire, and heck the bass guitar even pops up now and again. Each track has its own character, even if they aren't wildly different from one another. Part 1's tracks are also markedly longer, with two at near the ten minute mark, one over eleven, and three more in the six-plus range. This is befitting the two halves, of course, with the black metal tracks being longer and more wandering, with the Americana songs shorter.
To a very real extent, you could chop The Scars of Man... into its two halves and pass them off as different bands and most people wouldn't ever think you were lying to them, but doing so would also miss the strong thematic link the two sides have. If Part 1 is the storm you weather in the hopes of surviving, Part 2 is the smell of damp wood and the cold snow beneath your feet once it settles. The first hour is blistering winds, the buzzsaw of guitars and blast beats, the second slows down and relaxes, but still remains in the same aesthetic all the while. Listening to either half without the other misses a significant part of the full experience. The inhale needs its exhale.
The Scars of Man... is an absolute journey. You can't pull tracks out and put them in a playlist. It's just not meant to be like that. There aren't any tracks I would call "standouts," not because any of them are weak, but because this wasn't made to have "singles." I can point to the breakneck pace of "Sheep in Wolves Clothing" on Part 1 that transitions into that act's instrumental centerpiece as a highlight, to be sure, but these would be simple preferences. Little highlights along what is a masterful larger work. Yes, it's two hours long, and that's a big commitment, but if you've been a fan of Panopticon's past work, take an evening, put it on, and travel into the wilderness for a few hours. It's worth every minute.
