Myrkur - Mareridt

When Myrkur’s debut album hit buzz status riding the wave of ambient black metal made by Deafheaven, I found myself moderately disappointed when I checked it out. What I heard was, while often very pretty and with a few folk-y twists thrown in, a very on-the-fence commitment to a heavy black metal style, like a few preliminary dips of the toes into the pool of black metal’s harshness. From a stylistic standpoint I was able to get past this, but once past it, none of what Myrkur was doing on her debut was all that new stylistically (the prominence of her female vocals almost the sole selling point of the record) and the writing on the album was so meandering and didn’t seem to be addressed with much of a sense of musical purpose. While debuts, especially hyped debuts, can often be rough around the edges, Myrkur’s seemed to be getting this hype simply for its relative monopoly on the phrase “female solo black metal project” rather than that project actually making a bold and confident impact on the genre.

Mareridt is a step in the right direction, improving on the song-writing issues the debut had, but improvement seems to be coming slowly. Myrkur (Amelie Brunn) seems more sure of herself on this sophomore full-length, its deluxe edition being significantly longer than her debut, and her delving into black metal is less tiptoed on this album. Even so, the intensity of the heaviest moments on the album seem like they could use more, and the spaces between them are large and don’t do much to build anticipation or maintain focus. I’m not trying to pigeonhole Mareridt as a black metal project, but the mildly heavy black metal bits are the most thrilling parts of the record as the folk-y songs on the record play like extended interludes with the same lack of direction so much of the debut had. When the two seamlessly intertwine, the album shines, but briefly. Chelsea Wolfe, another talented female vocalist and cutting-edge artist of whose work I am a massive fan, makes two appearances (one being on a track on the deluxe edition) on the album, and while I was pleased to hear her voice as an element of sonic diversity (as I’m pleased to hear it just about anywhere), it’s not like vocal talent was this album’s greatest need, and Chelsea blends into the mesh of unorganized sounds here more than she would probably anywhere else. What the album could have used would be perhaps a guitarist feature or even a drummer feature, just to bring in a different set of ideas to spice up the album.

Overall I felt like I was just listening to a slightly more solidified and more confident continuation of M; even with a somewhat more focused direction, this album didn’t sell itself as well as the publications upping it have. I will still probably put this on occasionally in the future because it does have some unique sounds on it, and I will most likely look forward to whatever Myrkur does next with moderated anticipation. My only worry with the lauding Myrkur has been receiving even since M, is that it halts or slows her ambition with the idea that she’s at her best. I think more cohesive and captivating folk-y, ambient black metal albums of this style can be made and I think she can do it. And I hope that the many publications that have continued to praise her aren’t just going easy on her or doing so because they preemptively built hype around her in the first place and don’t want to backtrack, because that helps no one. It doesn’t help Myrkur improve and experience genuine hard-earned applause, and it doesn’t help the fans of the music who can easily see through it. Perhaps I’m just an outlier too, as there usually are, and the metal community really does dig this album. For Myrkur’s sake, I hope the latter is the case.