False - Portent

False are a six-piece from Minneapolis who have been at it for a few years now and even released a debut full-length back in 2015, but it was the artwork from the ever-mesmerizing Mariusz Lewandowski gracing the cover that lured me into their sophomore full-length here. And for that, I owe Lewandowski a big thank you because I am so glad I came upon this album. Portent is comprised of just four tracks (one of which is little more than an outro) of gloriously ethereal black metal that constructs its ascent into and down from the upper layers of the atmosphere through a mix of elements pulled from both classic symphonic black metal and contemporary American ambient black metal/blackgaze. As lengthy as the songs are, the band spend little time warming up to their fullest expression of anguish, and the band do well to smoothly carry their multifaceted sound through a compelling series of emotionally dynamic sections in which the rise and fall of the songs’ mood feels natural rather than contrived and is engaging for that reason.

The first of the three main compositions, “A Victual for Our Dead Selves”, bursts out of the gate at full pace with ripping blast beats and tremolo picking all taken up to the heavens by the possibly the lushest of backing angelic choir sections, which occasionally cease to drop the song into free fall for the band to track the panicking flurry of. The band’s way with the high-rise rollercoaster of atmospheric black metal is on full display throughout the song’s entire ride.

The second piece, “Rime on the Song of Returning”, similarly dynamic and admirably ceaseless in its sprint of semi-symphonic, atmospheric black metal, takes its flight a bit nearer to the fires of Sunbather’s shoegazy guitar style than to the blizzard of dissonance akin to In the Nightside Eclipse. The band do well to keep the song on the edge and differentiate it from the other two cuts here, drawing more of their ether from the guitars than the choirs this time around (which are still present in the songs most angelic moments), and even taking a venture into doomy waters about halfway though.

The last and longest of the three epics, “The Serpent Sting, The Smell of Goat” is another sixteen minutes of relentless black metal blast beats (that do seem at least partially influenced by Daniel Tracy’s playing style). The song doesn’t exactly break in its middle, but it diverts into a kind of choral cinematic build of anticipation of its own end and the finish of the album as a whole, and it does feel quite similar to a pre-climax sequence of a grandiose fantasy film; the climax, too, finishes the song in a rush of blackened catharais that wraps up all the album’s previous shudders from the icy winds of life’s winters into resoluteness in the face of the cold.

The album ends with the short piano coda of “Postlude” to bow out in ceremonial fashion, which it certainly deserves to do. Despite its only barely surmounting the forty-minute mark, Portent’s three epics make for a thrilling, majestic, and fulfilling listen that expertly weaves the soaring atmospheres of Deafheaven’s style of blackgaze from Sunbather into the beautifully haunting choir-driven brand of black metal that Emperor pioneered. The band have such a way with the flow from one mood to another that really shines on this album and rattles the cages of their potentially complacent contemporaries. And what similarities they bear to their contemporaries are hardly distracting either; the band are quite proficient with the elements they choose to blend together here and with the wielding of the blend itself. My only hope for the future with what Portent represents for False’s present is perhaps the band showing that they can sustain an even longer haul of this kind of material.

Falling to the heavens/10