Panopticon - The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness, Pt. 1

Austin Lunn’s Panopticon is one of ambient black metal’s most unique projects and one which I have grown more and more exhilarated by since hearing  2012′s Kentucky. Lunn’s incorporating of distinctly non-black-metal musical elements so freely has made Panopticon’s sound one of of the genre’s true enigmas, and his knack for transcendent composition within both restricted black metal structures and more open musical forms is impressive to say the least and has kept his music interesting across his now-eight full lengths and numerous split releases and EPs.

The first half of his double album release this year is more focused on the ambient black metal aspects of his project, and it certainly captures the more metallic essence of Panopticon’s continuous emotional invigoration through musical naturaphilia. As with many of his past efforts under the Panopticon banner, Lunn preaches an urge for humanity to fight to preserve its natural environment. On the spoken word interlude, “A Ridge Where the Tall Pines Once Stood”, Lunn expresses his belief in the spiritual importance of the natural wilderness to mankind, saying that if humanity neglects its responsibility to care for the natural world (as Earth’s undeniably most ecologically dominant species), we will destroy our culture and our species, with which I could not fucking agree more. Panopticon’s message is one addressing one of the most pressing, yet ignored problems of our time, and partially for that reason, Lunn’s music has always resonated with me, from his condemnation of the coal industry’s terrible ethics toward its workers and the environment to this album’s plea for humankind to not just recognize the beauty of nature, but treat it as something beautiful and crucial to our continued survival should be treated.

The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness, Pt. 1 continues Panopticon’s musical and thematic trends quite expectedly. Just as with most artists treading familiar ground, Lunn’s seventh full-length approach carries the advantages of experience and the disadvantages of gradual creative depletion, which is a term much too harsh for his work here. What this album shows is just how tremendously much Lunn has already done with Panopticon’s style to the point where it has become difficult to imagine what could be done next that’s totally novel. While the premise of a more black metal-focused album suggests extreme heaviness compared to Panopticon’s previous records, this first part of the two-album series isn’t really all that much more consistently heavy than Roads to the North, Collapse, or Autumn Eternal (and likewise, part two isn’t quite as absolutely non-metallic as Lunn’s Bandcamp page states it to be). 

Lunn seems like he almost has Panopticon’s soulful and contemplative heaviness down to a science, but it doesn’t take away from the masterful songs he pens on this record. Indeed, the album is much heavier on the side of the scale holding its highlights than the side with the less exciting songs. Some of the strong points on the album are “En Hvit Ravns Død” with its epic finale with the choral vocals behind its transcendent black metal guitar work, the second half of “Sheep in Wolves Clothing” containing a chaotic guitar motif that gives the sense of sprialing downward into a cold eternal darkness, and the sweeps and fiery blast beats of “En Generell Avsky”, a track viciously true to black metal’s Norwegian heritage. Some of the album’s less vibrant moments include the kind of diluted and drawn out closing track with its overly sentimental spoken message at the beginning, and “Blåtimen”, whose speedy guitar pull-off riffing doesn’t feel like it’s that complimentary to the mood of the song or the album. It has a pretty redeeming solo in its middle section though.

If there’s one thing to complain about for this album, it’s just that it’s kind of predictable for Lunn and Panopticon at this point, but with more to compliment the album for than to criticize it for, The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness, Pt. 1 is a pretty solid addition to the Panopticon catalog, and still more than commendable for its genuine message of conservation.