Unholy Craft – Naar All Tid er Omme (Good Dreadful Norwegian Black Metal)

 

Black metal + Norway = banal banalities? I feel like the genre’s particular focus on Norway during the 1990s led to a later “ugh” reaction towards anything from that region, except from those who know little. Even the “greats” we pretend were or still are “good” seem to fail miserably every time they reappear. But yet we keep pretending it’s cool they’re doing that thing. This can happen with anything, though, focus too much on an expected norm and it leads to tedium soon enough. So, any time I receive something of the black metal variety from Norway, and triply horrifying if it includes “true Norwegian” somewhere in the promo, I expect disappointment. Unholy Craft are the opposite.

   

There are a number of reasons this is the case, but one detail to note is it require a sense of Norwegian black metal in its modern state from its roots to really feel it. Though there’s certainly the classique Norwegian kvlt presence, Unholy Craft are part of the modern vanguard shifting the sound in creative ways. Unholy Craft experiments. They bring the noise, literally. They’re lo-fi yet the icy tones bite with a piercing, unmistakably discernible quality. The vocals shriek, yet are saturated in so much echo they sound more like emanations than a voice. But, overall, the atmosphere is dreadful, in a good way. It’s not black metal for Norway’s sake, it’s black metal for Unholy Craft’s sake. In many ways they’re creating their own sound using what’s come before. A truly impressive application of the classique to the noveau.

 

Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls

Unholy Craft – Naar All Tid er Omme
Purity Through Fire
Cover Art: Lieve Verschuier
4.4 / 5