Band:	The Flight Of Sleipnir
Album:	Eventide
Style:	Doom metal, Folk metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	May 2021

01. Voland
02. January
03. Thaw
04. Bathe The Stone In Blood
05. Harvest
06. Servitude

Sleipnir's latest flight has perhaps come later than expected; it seems like Odin's horse has been studying black metal in the interim.

The Flight Of Sleipnir first came to my attention thanks to Apothecary's review of Saga in 2013, in which he highlighted the interesting combination of folk, black, stoner and doom metal that formed the basis of the record. The American act had clearly drawn on a wide array of influences whilst determining the sound they wanted to write, and had afforded themselves plenty of opportunities to refine that approach, reaching five full-length releases in only seven years after the project was formed. Eventide is only the second release in the subsequent seven years, however, indicating a shift in approach by The Flight Of Sleipnir towards their release schedule. The four years since their previous album Skadi may have afforded them the opportunity to accumulate material, particularly if their writing remained as prolific as in previous years, so one could be optimistic that Eventide would signal a strong return by the band; was this optimism well-placed?

Apothecary mentioned in his review that black metal was a minor element on Saga, and I would agree that it was a secondary, if not tertiary, component of the album, with the main contribution coming courtesy of the blackened shrieks and guitar tones. It would also be fair to say that V and Skadi, whilst still drawing from most or all of the styles mentioned in the previous paragraph, were closer to doom and/or folk above anything else. I can't say the same is the case on Eventide; melodically-inclined black metal feels just a central to this record as the doom and folk components. Agalloch are a frequent reference point for (particularly American) bands combining black and folk metal, but of the albums I've heard from The Flight Of Sleipnir, Eventide is the one for which that comparison is by far the most relevant; it feels particularly glaring in the acoustic section near the end of "Harvest", with the soft acoustic strums and echoing timpanis, but also came naturally to mind on "January".

What can listeners expect from Eventide, then? Well, vocally, one can expect plenty of pained blackened shrieks, with only a few sections of clean vocals; these are primarily located on the predominantly acoustic "Harvest", with the singer effectively channelling John Haughm to fit the acoustic strums and delicate piano. The guitars also have a blackened edge to them for the most part, which is helped by the natural production sound; however, the songs don't really take the blasting drums and speed that are so associated with black metal, as the music here spends most of the time moving along at slow-to-middling tempos, hitting listeners with trudging, doomy riffs and crawls. Instead of a musical attack, The Flight Of Sleipnir opt for a more imposing, emphatic approach, and it largely works well.

There are songs that move closer to black metal, however; "January" opens with a powerful melodic tremolo lead that hooks you in, and brings tremolo and percussive pounding to the fore near the end, whilst "Thaw" similarly picks up the pace and intensity at times throughout its runtime. When the band do lean into the meloblack, Eventide is elevated to another level, as they're really adept at pulling off this approach. Something about the album that I'm slightly less convinced by is the reliance on taking soft breaks at some point in the middle of each of them. Some are longer than others, but every track has some point where everything stops and the band rebuilds from a soft base. It's not like the breaks are in and of themselves detrimental; they generally sound pleasant, and the band have some diversity in the approach, with the melancholic acoustics of "January" and "Harvest" countered by the more post-rock/blackgaze-leaning sound in "Voland" (which applies to that track as a whole to some degree) and the almost Opethian progginess that briefly appears on "Servitude". It's just that, by featuring in every song on the album, the approach starts to lose its appeal by the time Eventide is in its closing stages.

So, is Eventide a strong return by The Flight Of Sleipnir? I would say yes; it's probably the album by the band that I've most enjoyed since Saga, which may be partly due to the increased prominence of black metal in the mix, but is also partly due to the power of the melodic elements of the album. I think the band could benefit from a bit more variety in the way that they structure songs, and it's not like I'm necessarily craving repeat listens of Eventide, but it's an album of sufficient quality as to justify the intrigue I felt when I first saw that The Flight Of Sleipnir were returning with new music.