ALL HAIL THE TRANSCENDING GHOST

"All Hail The Transcending Ghost"

Cold Spring - 2009

CD

Another round, another run. Time to review the umpteenth dark ambient pearl rising from the wide and solitary Scandinavian lands. From the collaboration between Henrik Nordvargr Björkk (Mz. 412, Toroidh, Folkstorm, etc.) and Tim Bertilsson (Switchblade, Fear Falls Burning) is born this debut album under the moniker All Hail The Transcending Ghost and released by Cold Spring. Seven untitled tracks, except the last one, leads us into rarefied atmospheres of distant and mysterious worlds. It's the usual trend for this kind of releases, with long, ethereal and cold soundscapes, which, however, turn out not as obvious as you might expect. In the first four tracks, companions in our hallucinatory journey are shrill and morbid voices, like smothered, creaking doors, metal noises getting lost in bottomless abysses, echoes resounding into ravines where absolute darkness reigns. Interesting is track 4, where vocals gets form and recall of the Italian soliloquy by the corpse painter in Pupi Avati's cult horror film "La Casa Dalle Finestra Che Ridono": the mix of dark sounds and solipsist delirium seems to have succeeded.

In the last three tracks, on the contrary, maybe more energetic, like beams of light, more akin to the traditional dark ambient industrial, distorted guitars do appear here and there, as well as electric saw noises, without forcing, anyway, the ethereal context permeating the entire work. This debut can be considered positively, and, considering the names involved, the contrary would have sounded surprising, even if, exactly because of the two protagonists, it was probably legitimate to expect something more powerful, more incisive, more mature, something to spend the word masterpiece about.

- Marco S.

Website: http://www.coldspring.co.uk