Bergraven - Dodsvisioner (Hydra Head)
2/5
By: Charlie Potter
The overall gist of this album can be easily expressed as echoey, spacious soundscapes sometimes punctuated with gently plucked and similarly echoey guitars often leading into the main thrust of the record - the big, scary, slow riffs.
'Dodsvisioner' starts with a particularly creepy intro, all ominous glowing sounds and distant screams. It's really well done, this bit, but then out of nowhere comes a big slow scary riff which sadly just doesn't sound big or scary enough. It ends up just sounding slow. It then ping pongs in between two very similar riffs for the rest of the song, carefully building up, edging towards something... wait a minute... what is it? Oh! It's nothing. What a disappointing surprise.
They move from here in to a slow, echo laden, almost lounge goth sequence. Parts such as this are amongst the strongest on the album. If anything, I think 'Dodsvisioner' is largely let down by the overly metallic guitar sounds Bergraven use for extended periods. They've got it in them to write quite a good black metal album, menacingly quiet all the way through.
Given how extremely boring I found this 55 minute album the first time I heard it, it has grown on me a huge amount. But yeah, I still hate the way every song keeps coming back to the same two or three elements for 6 minutes or more, the knowing way the compositions of these tracks are totally brainless. It really would be more exciting if they just played each riff for as long as they felt necessary, and lined the three up against each other.
There are times in 'Dodsvisioner' when the vocalist gradually gets more and more intense throughout the song and skilfully builds the tension up to almost breaking point, but when they hit these points they just do disappointingly little with them, or slip back nonchalantly in to a previous riff. There's no need for any one of these tracks being over 4 minutes long, let alone 6. There is also no point on the album where they even up the pace a little. Now, as a Melvins fan, this isn't necessarily a problem - or at least it wouldn't be, but it just seems so blatant that this is what Bergraven are aiming for, and as such so odd that they never give it a go.
I would genuinely like to hear the vocalist and the guitarist responsible for all the quiet bits do something on their own. It's not that I have anything against the bass player and the drummer, I just don't think they're necessary and are doing more harm that they are good to this bands sound. Whilst I'm not particularly well versed in 'black' rather than 'death' metal, to my untrained ear this band have achieved a lot of unusual sounds quite deftly, and as such I'd say Bergraven are definitely an interesting, promising group. But listening to this whole album just for the highlights is a bit too much like hard work.
Stream 'Ekot Av Bikt' from 'Dodsvisioner' HERE.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment