Gadsghastr - Slit Throat Requiem

Channelling the likes of Emperor, Mayhem, and even Behemoth in the most ambitious stages of their respective careers, Gardsghastr make an ambitious surge for the symphonic black metal crown of the coming decade with their stylistically grand debut, Slit Throat Requiem.
With harrowingly spiralling tremolo-picked chord progressions over tempests of high-speed blast beat and fill-laden drumming, incantations of angelic choirs, and ethereal echoes of string orchestras to provide a fittingly expansive backdrop to the blackened instrumentation at the forefront, the band definitely set their sites on a claim for the void left by Emperor after their dissolution.
Having clearly studied the masters before them and learned their craft, Gardsghastr enter the ring well equipped to take the throne that none have really been able to pry the Emperor’s skeleton away from, and their debut album is certainly an exhibition of their own ability to match their forefathers’ blackened symphonic magnificence.
If there’s one thing that is holding this album back from Gardsghastr’s first move in supplanting the old guard, it’s its homogeneity. While Emepror, Dimmu Borgir, Mayhem, and the likes have reached for the highest heights of epic instrumentation, the best of them had the tact to manage it well and not become overrun by a musical force they couldn’t wield.
Now I’m not saying that Gardsghastr succumb to their own weapon and sink beneath the orchestration meant to elevate them. They do quite well to capture the aesthetic essence of what has made Norwegian symphonic black metal such a force to be reckoned with. And honestly, the band’s ambitious, sprawling compositions are mostly well-measured and effective as well, especially the epic “Beasts of Horn and Wing”, the eerie “Diabolical Reverence” (whose guitar leads invoke memories of Opeth’s better days), and the climactic turbulence of “Unfurl the Profane Wisdom”.
But for all its grandeur, Slit Throat Requiem offers little necessary novelty to really separate Gardsghastr from Emperor beyond the improved modern production of the former upon the template of the latter and little in the way of strong musical details within the larger picture of that grand instrumentation. No, I’m not complaining about a lack of guitar riffs. I enjoy the massive, impossible-to-take-in scope of this style of black metal. But even so, thank Gardsghastr could find more ways than simply the occasional focused swell of choirs into a certain semi-graspable motif to give their musical cosmos the ability to lift one up into it rather than just looming awe-strikingly overhead.
Again, this is a magnificent debut album and I have far more admiration for the band’s ability to reach such heights on their first album than I do qualms with its minor deficiencies, much like the legendary band I keep bringing up that obviously inspired them so much. Gardsghastr are so close; with just this one stroke, they’ve made a remarkable stab at the genre’s living and posthumous incumbents. And I am definitely excited to see how they might evolve from what might be their nightside eclipse.
To perhaps seize the empire one day/10

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