“Cthonic Trinity” opens with a slower, more doom-laden approach to atmoblack, towering over the listener and smothering them before exploding into an energetic, upbeat array of seriously fine black metal. The aforementioned “Satellite,” my personal highlight of the album, thunders to life on a foundation of tragic, wailing tremolos before slowing down and amping up the atmosphere for the chorus. Karst Relict stands solidly upon a foundation of inventive riffs, leads, arpeggios, and more riffs. Fortunately, Malist knows how to write good black metal. Of course, atmosphere is an important part of atmospheric black metal, but you know what else is important? That’s right, black metal, point for you. Say what you will about atmospheric tropes, but this is not a boring album by any stretch. It’s actually remarkable how much variance Malist manages to fit on one forty-six minute record. Sometimes this means intensity (“Satellite”), sometimes woe (“Lifeless Ease of Nonbeing”), occasionally energetic (“Timeless Torch”), but always bleak, always blanketed with sorrow, and never sticking around in one place too long. Every song on Karst Relict showcases a different side of Malist. If you’re concerned that I’m lobbing another hazy, ill-defined, non-heavy “atmospheric ‘black metal’” record at you, well, you can think again. Probably the most important thing to tell you about Karst Relict straightaway is that it’s very much a multifaceted album. So when I encountered Karst Relict, the third full-length in as many years from Malist, the solo project of one Ovfrost ( Bewailer), I was cautiously optimistic – they haven’t let this site down yet, and the album sounded, on paper, like exactly what I was looking for. Whether because of too much atmosphere, not enough variety, or just an altogether lack of menace or edge, atmospheric black metal of this particular vein was not all that good to me in 2020. Good enough albums, but neither really grabbed me the way I’ve been hoping for. Thinking back, my two most recent forays into its claws have been the most recent offerings by Old Growth and Winterfylleth. I’ve been craving new atmospheric music lately. Part of the quest is to find out what is necessary for me and what isn’t.Like distant thunder, the world of atmospheric black metal is simultaneously a comfort and a terror. Yikes.Īnd so, as we – as a society – are about to embark on yet another year of spending the Earth’s yearly resources way before the end of the year, each with our own insisting Consumption Monsters to deal with, it’s time to test out how much of this resource spending is needed and how much is wanted. And that’s exactly what I plan to find out. And all it took to wake it up was a few minutes on a few webshops and ten minutes into a store. Here I was thinking that the Consumption Monster was well and truly gone, but as it turns out, it was just asleep. Rewarding myself for… Shopping? It didn’t make sense to me and I found myself utterly disappointed. And by the time I went out and bought presents for my family, I ended up adding things to my basket, that were just for me. Scroll and scroll through endless pages of glorious, new, and exciting Things. I would procrastinate work, just to browse. I checked for sales, looked for bargains. And after a couple of nights of browsing webshops, I suddenly found myself wanting, needing, more and more and more Things. When asked to send wish lists, I suddenly found lots of stuff I thought I wanted, even needed. I find myself wishing that we could spend our money otherwise, or not at all and simply enjoy each other’s company. Yet another Christmas where I find myself with an immediate case of cognitive discrepancy over the fact that I do want to buy presents for my loved ones, but I also don’t. How did I realize? Christmas, that’s how. It became obvious to me most recently that despite it being a decade since I’ve really considered myself addicted to New Things, the Consumption Monster within me is still very much alive. “I don’t have anything like it”, I’ll insist. While I’ve done so successfully, once over, I’ll still find myself in situations arguing for why I need this new, shiny Thing. Not buying clothes for two months, or forgoing webshops altogether. I’ve done stints of “no shopping” before. But I am no Mark Boyle, and I have rent to pay, so I will be spending something.īut The Stuff? None of that. Zilch. If you’re not familiar with Mark Boyle, do yourself the favor. There have been many cool people out there doing that living without money. Wouldn’t it be great if that was actually the case? However, it’s not. 365 days – one whole year – of spending nothing.
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