Møl’s debut album, ‘Jord’, is a brutal, emphatically beautiful entry into the blackgaze genre. It’s another awesome reminder of how far black metal has expanded since its earliest days, with bands now concerning themselves less with corpse paint and Satan, and more with crafting hypnotic spectacles through foreboding ambience. And ‘Jord’ really is spectacular at times.
Of course, Møl are not the first band to wade into these waters. Wolves in the Throne Room, Winterfylleth, Deafheaven, Oathbreaker and Ghost Bath are all out there carrying the post-black metal torch, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that Møl create these ominous and consuming atmospheres extremely well. So well, in fact, that they can slot in among this league of artists after just one album. That is quite an achievement.
Guitarist Nicolai Hansen and drummer Ken Klejs used to play in a shoegaze-pop outfit called Antennas To Nowhere, and those influences definitely make their mark. This fusion is perhaps the best things about Møl: they’re the bastard child of Gorgoroth and My Bloody Valentine. It’s both uplifting and malevolent, yet it’s also oddly peaceful.
There are parts of ‘Jord’ that are decidedly shoegaze, with the shimmering instrumental Lambda cribbing from Slowdive, whose Sugar for the Pill single is also recalled in the lead guitar melody of album opener Storm.
Even in Møl’s most aggressive tracks, like Virga, Jord or Vakkuum, a sense of melody cuts through. There’s always some kind of beauty in the blackness; always a sense of grandeur. And this, played live at a high volume, is where those hypnotic spectacles would truly start to come through.
But, beyond invoking transcendental soundscapes, there are macabre concepts and social commentaries at work here, basically summed up as “we’re all going to die and return to the earth” by vocalist Kim Song Sternkopf in a recent interview with the Independent. Without being told that, though, it would be hard to discern any thematic identity, with the lyrics sometimes lost in their extreme delivery.
In many ways ‘Jord’ is a complete success. It’s earned Møl a place among world-class artists of the same ilk and is a fine example of the blackgaze genre. If you get a buzz from meditation through fierce noise, enquire within.
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