Band:	Shylmagoghnar
Album:	Emergence
Style:	Atmospheric black metal, Progressive black metal, Melodic death metal
Release date:	February 27, 2014
Guest review by:	AndyMetalFreak

01. I Am The Abyss
02. Emergence
03. Edin In Ashes
04. This World Shall Fall
05. Squandered Paradise
06. Eternal Forest
07. The Cosmic Tide
08. A New Dawn
09. The Sun No Longer

Emergence is everything I admire about metal music. I personally would categorize this as melodic black metal, but whatever genre you decide this should belong too, it's a remarkable album indeed.

The genre has always been difficult to categorize; it is mainly atmospheric progressive black metal, but also has strong influences of melodic death metal and, to a lesser extent, doom metal, blackened death and thrash can be heard. Shylmagoghnar have stated that all of these genres have had some impact on their style of music, and they themselves have never given Emergence a specific genre. Rather, they just allowed all the genres to flow together, and left it up to the fans and critics to decide what genre to categorize it as.

The making of Emergence spans more than a decade, with the songs "Edin In Ashes" and "Eternal Forest" being written over a 12-year period mainly through trial-and-error jamming sessions, whereas songs such as "I Am The Abyss" and "A New Dawn" were composed in full before they were performed. At first the musical elements were put in place, then they began recording the lyrics, but over the course of recording the vocals, new ideas had taken place, so adjustments were made to some musical elements. Nimblkorg has stated that this long period had given him a stronger grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of the songs, which he could then tackle before finalising the record. This resulted in each song having more consistent storytelling.

With this blend of all the different genres along with the incredible songwriting abilities and the outstanding production, the final result Emergence is breathtaking. The instrumental parts are both epic and melodic, and every song is brilliantly performed and beautifully crafted, with so many enjoyable melodies. The main riff of the title song is a breathtaking example of how a beautiful melody can be made from such a simple riff.

It's hard to find weaknesses in such a brilliant album, but because of all the mixed genres, I find that there is nothing entirely original about the songwriting. The originality is not so much of an issue here, though, because they have clearly used all their musical skills from the different genres to great effect.

Shylmagoghnar began a more progressive style route, with complex songwriting on their second album Transience, which shows the diversity in their songwriting skills, so I am really excited to hear what Shylmagoghnar have in store for the future.