Black Metal for those who dislike the genre – 84%
Agonymph, July 16th, 2007
Many people on this website seem to dislike this album. That is exactly why I am writing this review. It’s rare for me to write reviews on Black Metal albums, but I have always considered Borknagar is too inventive to fit that mold anyway. Let’s put it like this then: ‘The Archaic Course’ is one of my favorite albums labeled Black Metal of all time. There’s plenty of room for folky melodies, progressive elements and stellar songwriting, which is the basis for any good album.
As icing on the cake, there’s Simen Hestnæs (better known under his alias ICS Vortex) singing on the album. Hestnæs is without a doubt my favorite singer of the scene. He has just been blessed with singing in a scene which I generally consider crap. ‘The Archaic Course’ is, as said before, an exception. Even though Hestnæs’ voice is a little low in the mix every now and then, his performance is stellar.
Black Metal purists who don’t already know, the music on ‘The Archaic Course’ is NOT Black Metal. Well, not for most of it anyway. Borknagar did borrow elements from the same influences, but seems to focus on Scandinavian Folk and progressive Rock as an element, rather than putting together some pieces of random noise. ‘The Archaic Course’ has no blastbeats, very few dissonants and the vast majority of the album is sung clean.
In that matter, opening track ‘Oceans Rise’ did throw me off a little in the beginning. The first two verses are decorated with guttural vocals from Hestnæs, but once the beautiful and enchanting chorus starts, I’m convinced of the quality of this song. And of this band! The guitar melodies are haunting and the song builds towards a nice climax as well. The folky outro of the song rounds the whole thing off beautifully. There’s more clean guitar parts throughout the song, which makes it slightly shift mood every now and then. It’s hard to do that within a song, but Borknagar succeeds, thanks to Øystein G. Brun’s songwriting qualities.
‘Universal’ follows and has some of the best vocal work I’ve heard Simen Hestnæs do to date! The music of the song is top quality anyway, but the vocals are the real treat in this song. They just send shivers down my spine! They build up to something higher and more powerful gradually and how he does it is a mystery to me, but it works very well!
Another highlight for me personally is the song ‘Ad Noctum’, which is coincidentally the only song Hestnæs penned all the music to. The song is a bit weird, but in a good way. The hammond organ (also played by Hestnæs) gives the song a distinct seventies feel and there is a part with some dissonants, which really gives it a Yes-vibe. The intro consists of a beautiful melody as well. The different vibe already made me guess that Brun didn’t write this one. And Hestnæs did a great job on it anyway.
The other songs on the album are nothing remarkable, but they’re just good Metal songs. Nothing wrong with that! A friend of mine is still trying to convert me into Black Metal and as long as there’s albums like these labelled Black Metal, I won’t say anything in the genre is crap. And as long as there are singers like Simen Hestnæs, I’m not really complaining about the vocals either. This stuff is actually quite good!
rafazardly 